No Earthly Force
by mjojo83
Summary: Anna meets Sam and Dean at a sleazy motel by complete chance. She's trying to forget her past. She wants to move on and start over fresh but she's learning that is a bit harder than she thought it was going to be. When she learns that the things that go bump in the night exist, after the hell she lived through it doesn't really surprise her. (Dean/OFC)
1. Chapter 1

Cold air bombarded her as she stepped through the sliding door of the market. Looking down at her list she smiled briefly. There was only one thing she really needed and there was only one thing on the list. Pie. She hated pie usually, at least that was what she told herself to stop from buying it, but today she needed pie. She had just driven halfway across the country in a car that really was impractical to drive around the corner in much less travel a thousand miles in.

She walked towards the limited bakery section and looked around. There were several types of cakes, cupcakes, cookies, even a large brownie, but no pie. Her heart sank a little. She had been telling herself since the last pit stop that when she got to Nebraska she would get a pie and celebrate, slightly.

But there was no pie. She looked bleakly for a moment at the other options. No, it was pie or nothing. She tore herself away from the bakery and moved over to prepared foods. Nothing, she wanted nothing. She was really irrationally upset about the lack of pie. Blaming her upset on the emotional turmoil in her life she decided to just set out and find a proper place to eat.

She returned the basket and walked out to the car park. Her 1965 red Chevelle El Camino Hot Rod didn't exactly blend in, but some considerate soul had parked a '67 black Impala next to her. Together they drew a phenomenal crowd but it also made her look slightly saner. Yeah, people probably thought she was crazy or related to some sort of gangster but people also saw that there existed someone crazier than her. Someone had bought a 1967 Impala hard top and compared to an El Camino they should be locked up in an insane asylum.

They had parked too close and she had just opened the door and the worst screech of metal on metal echoed through the car park. She cringed. It was too late now. She kept opening the door trying to ignore the sound and eventual damage she was inflicting on both cars. She was in and as she closed the door she saw the long scratch of red paint she had created along the door of the Impala.

Proper etiquette told her that she needed to leave at least her name and number. After digging around in her purse for a minute she found an old receipt for a six-pack of beer and a carton of cigarettes. Classy, and a touch too reminiscent of the past she was trying to forget. In a chicken scratch scrawl she could barely make out she provided her number along with an apologetic note.

_'__So sorry! Give me a call and I promise to make it right. - Anna' _

With nothing left to say she reached out of her window and plucked the note under the windscreen wiper. Diving off she started looking for a place to stay. Cheap, she needed to save now. She didn't have a job, she had limited savings, and short of having some street knowledge and the ability to throw a loaded rifle around, she didn't have a ton of marketable skills.

This town was considerably smaller than Arlington but it was just a means to an end for her, a passing through place, by all means not a home. She wasn't sure she wanted one of those anymore. People talked about the human instinct to nest and she had always thought it was just what people do. They find someone they care enough about and they nest, they create a home.

And that is what she tried to do. She genuinely tried to create a home she imagined little carbon copies of herself running around the midsized townhouse she had rented. She imagined coming home from her dead end receptionist job and kissing her partner before fixing dinner. It didn't fill her with a sense of wonder and excitement but it was normal, it was expected. And then it all went to hell in a hand basket. But she wasn't focusing on that, she was looking at the Now and that was all that mattered. Right now she needed a place to stay, she passed a number of chain hotels she knew she could never afford before deciding to pull off at a little motel with florescent lights that would have spelt out Camelot except the 'E' had burnt out so instead it read Cam-Lot. It wasn't the Ritz and she was pretty sure they had charge by the hour options but at this point she couldn't be bothered to care.

She parked and walked into the run down shack with the words 'Front Office' taped onto the door. The room smelt of rotting flesh and she was pretty sure it was coming from the man behind the desk. As she walked closer to him she could make out the putrid smell of rancid onions and old fish. The man was deathly skinny, with sunken eyes and a yellow pallor. His greasy hair was dusted in flakes of dandruff, which sprinkled the desk whenever he moved his head. The white singlet he wore was drenched in sweat leaving it almost see-through.

Gross.

"Hi, I need a room for two nights."

"You sure that's all you need?" The man leered at her chest and she immediately regretted wearing the flimsy white sundress.

"Incredibly." She grimaced. "Just the room thanks." His smile revealed a set of rotting yellow teeth.

"Two nights." His eyes probed her body as he pressed some numbers into the cash register. "Two nights." He repeated. "That will be forty bucks." He flashed another sleazy grin and this time she thought she was going to be sick.

She pulled out two crumpled twenties from the pocket of her denim jacket and slapped them on the table. The man's nose twitched and he brought one grubby finger up to slide the money towards him. Immediately his hand slipped back into the elastic waistband of his sweatpants.

"Here are your keys." With his free hand he handed her the key. His fingers lingered on her palm for a second longer than they needed to. "If you need anything my door is always open."

"Thanks." She forced herself to smile as she backed away and rushed out of the building.

She was in such a rush to get out of the front office that she somehow missed the Jolly Green Giant walking around the corner with a bag of what looked like gas station groceries. She smashed into him and squashed her nose against his half raised hand. She must have hit metal because there was a distinctive cracking sound and pain radiated across her face.

"Oh fuck!" She yelled as she held her nose, which had insisted on starting to bleed, and backed away from him. "I'm sorry." She winced as she tried to breath through her nose. There was no mistaking it was very broken.

"Oh, uh crap." The man commented in a deep voice as he dropped the bag he was carrying and rushed over to help her. "I'm sorry I should have looked where I was going. My dad was always telling me not to read and walk." He smiled at her but she was too preoccupied with her nose to think about his words.

"Yeah," She scrunched her face. "It's broken." She winced again as she leaned against a light post.

"Here let me take you back to my room. I have some medical supplies I can at least set it for you." He must have noticed her hesitation because he quickly added. "Or I could take you to the hospital or something."

"Um no, no hospitals, thanks." She couldn't really afford the bills at this moment in time and it was just a broken nose they wouldn't be able to do much more than put a six thousand dollar splint on it. "If you think you can set it straight I'm not going to stop you." She hid her fear well.

If she told the truth she was petrified to enter some stranger's motel room, especially in this motel, but she didn't have many options, it wasn't like she could fix it herself. At least not without coming out of it looking like a science experiment. The man must have taken that as the go ahead and he helped her up. She was grateful because at the moment seeing was difficult and walking in a straight line was almost out of the question.

"Fuck! What are you made out of solid metal?" She asked with a laugh followed by a wince.

"Uh, no." The man responded earning a quizzical look from her. It wasn't really a question she was expecting an answer to.

"Okay." She was unimpressed. "Which room are you?"

He pointed to a room with pealing numbers on the garish orange door. Room 11-B. She looked down at the keys she had been holding and saw on the tattered lanyard the number 11-A glinting back at her due to the reflective stickers. They were neighbours.

"And you promise not to murder me with an axe when we get in there?" She was mostly joking but there was a serious concern underneath all of that.

"If I was going to murder you with an axe wouldn't I tell you I was going to, would I?" Great he was a joker. She had very little patience for jokers.

"Okay." Was her only response again as they walked the short distance to the grubby door.

The door creaked on its hinges and the sound made Anna wince. There was a man lying on the bed and the television was blaring some sort of prime time soap opera. Suddenly she regretted her decision on having this stranger set her nose. Her feet stopped and when she saw the man get off the bed her heart started pounding.

_'__Great, get yourself thrown into some sex trafficking thing! Perfect!'_ She yelled at herself.

"This is my brother." The man must have sensed her fear. "Dean. Here let me got you a rag or something." He moved quickly as he realised she was holding up her dress slightly in an attempt to staunch the bleeding.

"If you could just knock my nose back into place that would be perfect." At this point she just wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. She lowered her dress and pointed her face towards the one not named Dean.

"I can, but it's going to need stitches." He gently moved her head from side to side, barely making contact with the base of her chin. "I can do them if you want."

"Who the hell are you?" Anna questioned as she listened to him appraise her face.

"I could ask you the same question." His question was light but she could hear the actual curiosity behind the statement.

"Anna Fulton, pleasure." She winced as she held out her hand.

"Sam Winchester." He nodded as he took her hand and gave it a small shake.

"Yeah and I'm the big brother, Dean." The shorter one waved. "Dude, where's the pie?" He looked at his brother expectantly.

"The market didn't have any but I got you a really big brownie." Sam was concentrated on wiping of the excess blood from her face but it was still pouring out of her nose.

"I probably look like Carrie right about now." She laughed trying not to move her face. For the second time that day she regretted wearing that stupid dress.

"I have some more bad news." This time Sam's voice seemed cautious. "Dean, I swear it wasn't my fault."

"What's wrong?" Dean's voice was as sharp as a razor. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything. Look the car," He started but Dean was already running out the door. He was back within seconds and his whole body was trembling.

"You scratched her!" He yelled.

Anna froze. The market didn't have pie and the car was scratched. No, it couldn't be the same car. There were at least twenty other cars in that car park and she would have noticed someone of Sam's stature walking around the small market.

"Look they left a note with their number I'm sure they will pay for the paint job. I swear I just parked her, when I came back out I saw it." Sam wasn't looking at Dean as he fished something out of his back pocket and slammed it onto the table.

Immediately Anna's heart sank, she recognised the scrap of paper as the receipt she had left on the black Impala. Dean picked it up and scrutinised the note before looking over at her.

"What did you say your name was?" Dean lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Fuck, you drive a '67 black Impala, don't you?" She winced as Sam started going at her nose with something that smelt slightly alcoholic and stung like a bitch.

"And you drive some tacky red hybrid?" Dean accused causing Anna to frown.

"It's a '65 El Camino, don't trash talk her." She demanded, fighting the urge to stand up and poke him in the chest for insulting her baby. "And it was your brother that parked too close to me."

"If your nose wasn't already broken I would bust it again!" Dean threatened but walked away fuming.

"That's assuming I'd let you." Anna scoffed, secretly hoping it would never come to finding out because she was sure Dean could take her.

"I'm going to pop your nose back in place now." Sam whispered.

"Do your worst." Anna braced herself for the pain. CRACK!

"Son of a bitch!"


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Trigger Warning for domestic abuse and rape. Let's be clear that a woman is never asking for it. No means no.**

She was still trying to keep the tears out of her eyes and holding her nose to prevent any more pain from being inflicted on her. She shut her eyes and suddenly realised her mistake. She thought she was over it, she thought she had forgotten it; she thought he was just bad nightmare. But the second she shut her eyes she saw him. His baby blue eyes sparkling with malice as he lifted his belt to slice across her face again. The dimples in the corner of his mouth in full view as he laughed at her tears like he thought it was all one big joke. His hands, the ones that she thought were so soft and kind when she first met him, pushing her up against the wall and pulling at her hair so hard that it fell out for days after.

His hands pulling at her skirt, the blue one she had bought specifically to impress his parents, yanking it off her hips and leaving bruises. The bed should have felt soft but it didn't as it knocked the wind out of her. The familiar ripping of her underwear and she went dead inside. She made no movement to stop him, she turned her head to the side, she let him do whatever he was going to do because telling him no wasn't going to stop him. It would make it worse. It would make him worse.

From the corner of her eye she saw the glint of something under the pillow. The gun he kept under his pillow, loaded at all times. Slowly she moved her hand, inching it closer to the pillow. She could kill him; she would kill him just to get him to stop. She thought she loved him, she thought he loved her; he always said he loved her. Her hand reached the cold medal of the gun, deep breath. She thought about it for a minute and then she turned the gun on him. He froze inside her.

"Robbie, stop." She muttered. "Stop." Her voice was stronger this time. He made no move to get off of her. "Stop." Her voice was close to yelling. Still he made no movement. "STOP!" She bellowed and this time her finger slipped.

The sound a gun makes as it fires a bullet into someone's head at close range is indescribable. It wasn't quite a crack and it wasn't a bang, it was a pop. And the blood, there wasn't a crime show on television that could have prepared her for the blood. It sprayed across the bed and over her face; it seeped onto her chest as his weight sunk into her. The term dead weight never felt so accurate. Something warm dripped into her open mouth and she blinked a couple times. It took her half a minute to realise it was his blood.

Her phone let out a sharp ping and it brought her back to the present. She jumped a little before she reached in her pocket and grabbed a beaten flip phone. It took all of the strength in her to turn to look at Sam again.

"Can you do the stitches while I talk on the phone? Nine out of ten times it's my Dad and he drilled it into us when we were pretty little, you don't miss a call from the General." Anna looked at Sam and she saw the question in his eyes but he just nodded slowly as he cut a large amount of dental floss from a spool. "Hello?" she tried to sound confident.

"Anna!" Her father bellowed into the phone causing her to wince and hold it away from her ear.

"Yes sir." She responded.

"You told me you were going out for a drink with friends. You never came home and then I see the note you left on the kitchen counter. I raised you with honour and integrity, this is neither."

"Da- Sir. All I am trying to do is -" Anna started but her father cut her off.

"You are the oldest, you are supposed to set an example for your sisters. You think this is the example you should set for the girls?"

"It's not my job, I'm not their mother!" Anna argued and immediately bit the inside of her mouth. That was the wrong thing to say.

"Was that talk back I heard?" Her father demanded in a tone that she knew carried into the room. It was a tone she had learned to fear. "Were you talking about your mother?"

"No sir." She stated emphatically trying to take back the words that had tumbled out of her mouth.

"Your mother, God bless her soul, was a saint. She was taken too early from this life and you would do well to watch your tone. Where are you?" Again he demanded and Anna flinched.

Sam was watching her; mercifully he hadn't started slicing into her nose yet. Instead he patiently held an old t-shirt up to her nose to staunch the bleeding. Anna could feel eyes on her back and she assumed it was Dean.

"I'm sorry Sir, I should never have compared myself to her. I am in Nebraska, Sir." She tried not to let the defeat slip into her voice. Here she was thirty years old and still being told when to jump, and of course her only answer was ever 'how high?'

"What on God's green earth is in Nebraska?"

"Nothing, Sir." She muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said nothing, Sir" She was a little louder that time.

"Repeat that?"

"I said NOTHING, Sir." This time she stood up and slammed her fist on the table. "Nothing is in Nebraska, Sir." She grabbed for the t-shirt and held it up with her free hand.

"Come home."

"Respectfully, Sir, no." she gulped.

"Excuse me?"

"Sir, I love you but I am not your whipping boy. I have followed your every move, idolized you in every way possible. You are my father and I love you, but I am not your whipping boy." She snapped the phone shut and her eyes went wide.

She didn't dream it up; she really just said that to her father. She really hung up without saying goodbye. She really refused the General. No one refused the General. She felt sick to her stomach. She sat back down and didn't make eye contact with anyone. Her heart was beating at a rate she didn't think was healthy, a sweat broke out along her brow, she wiped her hands on her dress and shucked her jacket, suddenly it was too hot. She pulled her hair up and couldn't stop fidgeting.

"Sam now would be a really nice time for you to start." She muttered still not looking at him.

"Are you sure, it's going to hurt." He checked in with her as he saw her eye the needle he was about to use.

"A little pain's a good thing." She smiled as she looked at Sam with slightly nervous eyes. "It will take my mind off the fact that I just disobeyed a direct order from Lieutenant General Jonathon Fulton." Sam nodded and his eyes travelled to her shoulder. The large, jagged, crescent scar that adorned her left side was on clear display. "I ran into a door." The look on her face would have been obvious to anyone that had spent any amount of time with her that she was lying.

Sam nodded as he sliced into the bridge of her nose with the needle and Anna let out a sharp hiss.

"And that one?" He pointed to the one on her thigh that was exposed as she fiddled in her seat.

"Fell down the stairs." She raised her eyebrows, daring him to voice his concerns.

"Those must have been some stairs." He commented dryly as he made another stitch and Anna gripped at the table and bit her lip. She didn't make a peep, years of living with Robbie taught her to keep silent because complaining over pain only made it worse. "Okay, I'm done." he backed away from his work and nodded slightly. "It's going to scar."

"It'll add to my collection. It was nice to meet you. I'm really sorry about your car. I will definitely pay for the paint job. Hey, how about I take you both out to dinner? It's the least I could do." She rambled as she gathered her things and walked towards the door. "Seriously, I just need to get changed and then anywhere you want to go."

"Anna, that's okay." Sam stood up and walked her to the door.

"Now Sammy, the girl wants to take us out for a burger. You know I can never pass on a burger." Dean suddenly got very friendly. "While we are out there you can explain to me exactly how you are going to get me the money to repaint my car. You have twenty minutes."

"I only need five but I'll take ten so I don't look desperate." Anna joked and then second-guessed herself. "Not that I think I look desperate or anything because I'm not desperate or anything. Okay, I'm going to go. I'll meet you in the parking lot."

Anna walked over to her car and pulled out the small duffel bag she had brought. She had exactly two changes of clothes now that her dress had been turned into something out of a B movie horror film. Her room was worse than Sam and Dean's, it smelt worse and there was a strange stain on the carpet that she decided she didn't want to identify. As soon as the door shut behind her peeled off her dress and opened her bag to pull on a worn grey USMC t-shirt and jeans. She moved over to the sink and jumped back. Three large cockroaches had made a home in the basin and hissed as she turned on the light.

"Gross, gross, gross!" She muttered as she plucked them up one by one and dropped them on the ground before stepping on them. It only occurred to her afterwards that she didn't have any shoes on and bug guts squished through her toes. "Perfect." She grumped but turned on the water and waited for it to run clear before she splashed a little on her face trying to clear the dried blood.

Anna walked out of the bathroom purposefully dragging her foot along the carpet to clean it before putting on a pair of boots. There was a knock on the door and she suspected it was the manager offering his special services. She had already put on her best disgusted face by the time she opened the door.

"Look I -" She was cut off when she saw both Sam and Dean standing outside her door. "Sorry, I thought we were going to meet in the parking lot?" she asked. She grabbed her jacket and moved outside and started walking to her car. "So I was thinking a diner or something? If you guys want to go somewhere nicer I guess that's okay." She really didn't want to do that and she highly doubted anywhere nicer than the local diner. She thought they didn't look like the kind of guys that would be comfortable in a nice restaurant but they might try and milk a free meal for all it was worth.

"A diner is fine." Sam assured and Dean nodded with a noncommittal sort of grunt.

"Okay, cool, I'll drive." Anna shrugged as she climbed into the car. "Uh sorry for the mess, it was a long drive."

"Where are you coming from?" Sam asked from the back seat as he pealed an old fast food wrapper off the seat next to him.

"Arlington, Virginia." Anna sped out of the parking lot and onto the town's main drag.

"What's there?" Dean was looking out the passenger seat window with his hand pressed up against his lip.

"The Pentagon. My dad's a three star general in the Marine Corps." Anna really didn't want to think about her father and she doubled her efforts to find someplace to eat.

"What about your mom?" Sam asked, not picking up on Anna's tension.

"My mom died when I was ten years old in a hit and run." Her attention was divided as she pulled into the car park of a diner advertising 'ho-made pie'. "Okay, here we go." She felt a bit like a tour guide as she walked into the retro diner. The pealing wallpaper had a strange cherub design on it and Anna thought they looked a little demon like but she kept her mouth shut as she smiled at the ancient waitress standing at the podium. "Hi, table for three please. A booth would be best."

It was a learned habit she picked up from her years with Robbie. She needed to see everything the room. Her back had to be to the wall. That was the safest place; no one could sneak up on her if she had her back to the wall.

"Sure thing, missy." The woman picked up three greasy menus and gestured for them to follow. She had red lipstick painted onto one of her chipped front teeth and smelt like tobacco and vinegar.

Anna had to bite her lip to stop from corrected the woman that her name wasn't 'missy' and calling her that only resulted in a lower tip.

Once they were seated the table became deathly silent. There was an awkward moment where Anna looked at Sam, Sam looked at Dean, and Dean glared at Anna.

"So my car?" Dean asked as he picked up the menu. "It would be easier for me if you just gave me your checking number and I can get the money I need to fix what you ruined."

"Oh yeah?" Anna asked looking at her own menu. "Are you some distantly related prince from Africa too? Honestly how stupid do I look?" She raised an eyebrow at him over the top of her menu. "How long are you guys going to be in town?"

"We actually are on our way out tomorrow, we were just here since yesterday." Sam informed her.

"Where are you headed?" She put down her menu, which she really didn't need because she knew what she was going to have the minute she walked into the place.

"Away from here." Dean made a face. "Anywhere away from here." He muttered and Anna thought she saw a shiver run down his spine.

"What a coincidence, we are headed in the same direction. What are you running from?" She hid her snort as the old woman came back with water for Anna and Sam before turning away.

"We aren't running. We are working on a job for our father." Dean looked upset at her accusation but she managed to shake it off. The woman came back again with yet another glass of water before she looked expectantly at the trio.

"Well," she paused. "What am I getting you?" She sounded almost annoyed by their very presence.

"I'll have a bacon cheeseburger, well done, with fries and whatever beer is cold." Anna stated without looking at the rude waitress before she handed back the menu. "Thanks, Missy." Her words were cold as she finally looked up at the woman's fried blonde hair.

The woman didn't like that; she let out an annoyed huff before looking at Sam.

"Uh, I'll have a cobb salad." It sounded like a question as he said it and Anna could tell it wasn't the usual order from the look on Dean's face.

"Right." Dean was still looking at Sam with a questioning look, which Sam was steadfastly ignoring. "I'll have the same as her." He smiled at the waitress and was rewarded with a half smile as she took a break from chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Coming up." She hobbled off towards the kitchen and Anna returned her focus on the men in front of her.

"We are supposed to go to Pennsylvania next."

"Now, maybe it's because I have a really shitty dad but why would you voluntarily work for your father?" Anna questioned as she took a sip of water.

"You got some Daddy issues?" Dean smirked at her.

"I didn't always. He was a really great dad at one point but he kind of lost it after my mom died. We moved around a lot when I was younger, for his career mostly. My sisters and I were raised like we were conscripted into the military." Anna shrugged.

"Can you shoot a gun?" Dean asked looking intrigued though more than a little sceptical.

"Yeah." Anna's tone became brisk when she saw where his questions were leading.

"Have you ever killed?" Dean questioned blandly.

Anna was a little taken aback. People that asked that question either held their head back in disgust at the things she could have done, or leaned forward a little too closely, a little too intrigued about her life. But Dean wasn't any of those things. He asked the question like it was a standard dinner topic, leaned back, casual, almost like he was unimpressed by any answer she could give.

"A couple of deer, a moose, one time a bear, and then ten months ago I shot my boyfriend in the head," She tried to keep the unimpressed tone in her voice but she could hear the hitch in her voice when she mentioned Robbie. "Oh good food!" She smiled as a large plate was sat down in front of her.

Sam looked horrified; his big brown eyes were clouded in worry and a small amount of discomfort at the topic. Dean's expression didn't change. His eyebrow rose slightly but for the most part he remained still, only moving when his plate was placed before him.

There was complete silence as everyone bit into their food. Sam made a face and Anna noticed with a smirk. Wordlessly she dumped her fries onto her larger plate and cut her burger in half. She placed half on the small plate and moved it over towards Sam.

"Thanks for patching me up." She smiled before going back to eating. "So you guys thought your dad was here or something?"

"Nah, nah, Sam wanted to visit a faith healer here." Dean talked with his mouth full of half macerated cow.

Anna wiped at her face and placed the napkin down on her lap.

"Not one of those 'Praise the lord, and with this hand I shall heal thee of all evil' hack jobs looking for a hand out if you ask me." Anna snorted.

"You don't believe in God?" Sam asked.

Anna snorted.

"Even if I did believe in a God I would never believe he comes down and picks certain people to cure. Those guys are just looking for an easy buck. I'm not saying an easy way to earn a buck is a bad thing, I'm just saying they wouldn't get my buck. Maybe I'm just bitter because I know God wouldn't save me." Anna chuckled to herself.

"Why won't God save you?" Sam asked, seemingly interested in her belief.

"After all the shit I've done? The shit I've seen? I'm going to hell and I'm going to have a grand ole time getting here." She winked and then saw their confused looks. "I am the Lord thy God, Thou shalt have no other gods, No graven images or likenesses, Take not the Lord's name in vain, Remember the Sabbath day, Honour thy father and they mother, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet. Guilty." She raised her hand, claiming responsibility for her actions.

"What has a girl like you ever stolen in her entire life?" Dean did nothing to cover his own snort.

"Didn't you know? Us military brats, we get in all sorts of trouble." She smiled. "There are no girls like me, I'm one of a kind."

"Our father was a Marine." Sam made light conversation as Dean looked at her like a cow up for auction. Anna tried to ignore the way he would look at her for a minute and then off into space like he was thinking really hard.

They talked for about thirty minutes, about nothing in particular. Anna made sure to avoid topics that would lead back to her Robbie, and she noticed Sam skirt around any questions that related to whatever they were working on. Dean stayed silent.

The elderly waitress came around and asked if they wanted anything else.

"What pies do you have?" Anna asked, her craving from the afternoon not quite as gone as she thought it was.

"Fresh out of pie. We got a chocolate lava cake that's not awful." Anna grumped a little and folded her arms. She was never going to get her pie.

"I'll pass on that." Finally Anna threw her napkin onto her empty plate. "Okay I'm ready whenever you are." She stated. "Dean, if you want to find a place to fix the scratch tomorrow, I'm not doing anything."

"Well we are headed out early so I doubt we will get the chance." Dean smiled but clearly he was thinking about something else.

"I'm an early riser, just give me a call and I can follow you where ever you want to go. As long as it's not back to Virginia, I'm actually looking for an adventure." She placed a couple of bills on the table and tried to ignore that it was the last of her cash.

"So, why'd you stop here? Why not keep going?" Dean asked as he got out if his seat and walked with her out of the restaurant.

"This is going to sound really strange but I thought I was having a heart attack." She opened her car door and waited for the others to get in. She saw them look at each other before they got in. "I had just crossed the Nebraska border about four in the afternoon and I could have sworn I saw someone in the backseat of my car. At that point I thought I was crazy but all of the sudden it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. I pulled over at some public pool took a deep breath and the feeling was gone, it just sort of vanished. That's when I decided to call it a day. I was seeing things and feeling things that just weren't there."

"When did this happen?" Dean suddenly was looking at Sam with the ever familiar 'told you so' glare.

"I don't know, a little after four, 4:10 maybe." She thought about it for a minute. "Actually I do know, the clock broke right when I started feeling like shit. See, 4:17." She pointed at the clock. "Radio broke too. It was probably just my body's way of yelling at me for the big mac at two in the morning."

"It looks like we are going to be in town a bit longer than we thought. I'll give you a call about the car." Dean turned back to face her after he was done glaring at Sam.

"Sounds good. What changed your plans?" She asked as they turned into the motel parking lot.

"Just a little more business to take care of." Dean supplied cryptically.

"Okay then." Why they acted like they were so good at lying was beyond her. Dean was clearly antsy and Sam was looking guilty but Anna decided not to press their patience and just ignore it. "I guess I'll see you in the morning."

"Thanks for dinner." Sam called as she walked to her room and they walked to theirs.

"No problem, I promise I'll fix your car." She called back with a smile as she wiggled the key in the door but it was stuck. She twisted again but it wouldn't budge. She could feel Sam and Dean's eyes on her as she struggled with the door. Anna took a step back and sighed. "You have got to be fucking kidding me." She muttered to herself.

She kicked lightly at the door and could feel them walking over to her. She waved her hand at them to stay back as she aimed a more forceful kick higher up the door closer to the handle. It creaked and finally gave way, opening with the scratching sound of carpet on wood.

"Don't worry I got it!" She grunted. "Heart attack my ass!" she muttered to herself. "Fit as a damn fiddle." That last part reminded her of her father and she quickly shut up. She tore her pants off and crawled onto the bed. It was a long day and all she wanted was a well earned rest.


	3. Chapter 3

The morning came a little quicker than she thought it would. There was a harsh knocking at the door and without thinking about her lack of clothing she rushed to answer it.

"It better be important." She grumbled, rubbing her eyes as sunlight streamed onto her face. She blinked and saw Dean smiling down at her. He must have been taller than six foot because he stood almost a head taller than her. How she didn't realise his height the night before was a mystery. She had though he was shorter. "Oh, morning." She blushed and then worked to cover her legs. Thankfully her shirt was long enough to cover most of anything she really cared about. "What are you doing here?"

"I called your phone but I didn't get an answer. I brought you a coffee." He held out a midsized Styrofoam cup with steam pouring out the lid. "I want the car fixed today." He didn't mince words as he let himself in. Anna moved aside and picked her pants up off the ground. She grabbed her last clean shirt and headed to the bathroom while Dean sat in one of the rickety chairs that surrounded an even ricketier table.

"Let me take a shower first and we can head out. I think I saw a garage a few miles back; it's probably the only one in this town. Please make yourself at home." She grumbled about him letting himself in but really didn't care. He wasn't the friendliest of characters but she could tell he wasn't a bad guy. He just really loved his car.

"I'll be here." Dean muttered as he fiddled with the remote she hadn't touched.

"Where's your brother?" She called through the closed door as water splashed out of the bathtub faucet.

"He's doing a little work back in the room. He's the brains, I'm the brawn." She could practically hear the smirk in his tone as he said it.

Anna stuck her head out for a moment, realizing she had forgotten her shampoo.

"Can you do me a favour? There's a green bag in my duffle, can you hand it to me?" she asked as she wrapped herself in one of the paper-thin towels. "It has the Army crest on it." Anna described needlessly, it was a small duffle and that was one of the last things in it.

Dean walked over to her with the medium faux leather bag. She ignored that he tried to take a peak at her from behind the closed door.

"Thanks." She closed the door again and dropped the towel. The steam from the water started to fog up the mirror but a large part of her was still visible. Anna looked at herself and tilted her head slightly. She could easily identify every mark on her skin. She could almost date all of them, she could feel the way that they had happened, Robbie's excuses for why she needed it.

When she managed to tear herself away from the mirror she could hear Dean talking but she missed what he had said.

"Sorry, what was that?" She asked with her voice raised like maybe it was the sound of water that impeded her hearing.

"I was asking why you have a bag from the Army when your dad is a Marine." Dean repeated a little louder.

"I got it when I was on the JROTC drill team in high school, we came in second place and that was the prize."

"Where did you go to high school?" Dean was much more interested in her life today than he was last night but Anna didn't see the harm in answering his questions. Her recent past was tricky but high school actually wasn't an awful time for her.

"Massanutten Military Academy, in Virginia." She replied as she stepped into the spray of the water that had mercifully not gone cold while she had stood out there. "So, I know paint jobs can take a little bit of time so if you guys need a lift anywhere while your car is in the shop I would be happy to take you. I know the back seat isn't exactly spacious."

She heard Dean snort and at that assessment she couldn't find any room to argue.

The back seat shouldn't have even existed. The man she had bought the car from had torn out some of the lining in the back and reupholstered it with leather. It looked like a seat but it hardly functioned as one and seeing Sam squeeze back there last night was almost comical. There was close to no legroom and the only way to sit back there was to lay across the back with your head propped against the window.

"All I'm saying is." She shouted as she turned off the water and stepped out. "You guys are welcome to use my car but I'm coming with it." Anna towelled herself off and slipped into the relatively fresh clothes before she walked out of the bathroom. "Okay, ready when you are."

Her fiery copper locks were still dripping as she tied them up into a large knot on her head. The high-heeled brown leather boots she had worn yesterday were sitting slumped in the corner along with her only pair of socks. It was that or nothing, she chose the boots. The socks were cold and slightly damp from her wearing them the night before but she ignored it.

Dean was watching the last minutes of some talk show and had sprawled himself along the unused bed. Anna swung up her purse and fished her keys out of the bottom of her bag.

"Are we really watching this? Come on, I showered for you, let's go." She huffed as she walked to the door and flung it open. She felt Dean follow after her and she didn't like that he was behind her, something about it made her feel uneasy. Anna slowed her paces to match his before dropping back a quarter of an inch. That was all it took to feel better, safer, and for that she hated herself.

Anna drove her car and followed Dean in his Impala. The garage she was talking about was the only one in town and if the outside said anything about the kind of work they did Dean was better off just leaving the scratch and calling it character. The burly man with a strange gruff accent agreed to look at the car and pointed them over to a row of plastic chairs.

"Why'd you tell us about your boyfriend?" Dean looked at her for a minute before picking up an old copy of mechanics weekly and flipped through it.

"It's public record, Dean. It would have taken you three clicks on Google to find it. I was just saving you some time. The cops were called, there was report, it was labeled self-defense, and the DA didn't even press charges. I don't have anything to hide." Anna held her head high before slumping back and drumming on the unused part of her chair.

"But why did you tell us?" Dean repeated.

"Because I would rather tell people what happened than have them read about it in some article that no doubt gets the facts wrong." Anna defended after a minute.

"Okay, so why didn't you tell us what happened?" Dean prodded unaware of Anna's discomfort.

"Because it isn't dinner conversation. You asked me if I killed and I answered honestly, now I won't lie and say that I wasn't trying to shock you at some level, but for the most part I just needed to say it." Anna grabbed the magazine out of his hands and flipped through it before finding a mildly interesting article.

"Are you going to tell me?" Dean was forced to look at her and for the first time she could hear the genuine curiosity in his voice.

"Sure. Ask nicely." She didn't look at him as she saw the man that took Dean's car come back. "So what's the damage going to be?" She asked, hoping it would be minimal.

"We buffed out the red and the scratch went down to the second layer of paint. Standard work is going to cost you three hundred." He looked at her chest as he said it and Anna thought she saw her opening.

She groaned a little.

"There isn't some way we could do one fifty? Look my, brother and I, we were supposed to be out of here this morning. If you can't fix the scratch for that we will just live with it till we get home." She shrugged her shoulders a little in a way that made her chest shake a little.

"Na ma, I can't do one fifty. Maybe two." The man looked at her like he wanted to be a tough gangster. He came off looking constipated.

"I'll tell you what, one seventy five. It's a good healthy number." She squinted her eyes and tilted her head slightly. "Like I said, my brother has been known to drive the thing around for a month without any tail lights we could really drive the thing a little longer with a scratch." She reasoned.

"Okay." He grunted. "It's going to take some time but it's a slow day so I can get it done by the end of business tomorrow." Anna looked at Dean with raised eyebrows.

He gave a small nod and Anna stuck her hand out to the mechanic with a smile.

"You're a good man." She smiled at him. "Come on Dean, let's get out of the man's hair." She jerked her head to the door of the waiting room.

"I just need you to sign this form." The man held the clipboard out to her and she signed it without a second thought. "Okay we'll give you a call when it's ready." He smiled at her again and she forced one onto her face. "You her little brother?" He looked at Dean with an appraising look. "Sure are tall."

"Yeah." Dean wasn't interested in making conversation with the man. "You ready?" he walked over to her car and got in the drivers seat, honking impatiently for her to move her ass.

She jogged to the car, ignoring the pain in her feet as the heels dug into her.

"Are you driving?" she asked as she got in the passenger side and held out the keys. "That wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I said you could borrow my car." She yammered as he pushed the car well past the natural limits. "Hey watch it! This is my car, treat it with respect." She called as she saw the needle pass one hundred.

"Tell me about your heart attack." Dean demanded without lowering his speed. "Sounds freaky."

"Why do you want to know?" Anna demanded. "It's not like I was actually having a heart attack. I was just at the doctor like last month, I was declared in peak physical condition." That was a lie, the doctor's had warned her about her heart but it was nowhere near heart attack bad and it was all Robbie's fault.

"I just do. What about the guy you said you saw in the back seat." He encouraged.

Anna rolled her eyes.

"I told you I was seeing things. I was short of breath and not getting enough blood to the brain and I was seeing things." She repeated.

"What did he look like?"

"Tall, grey, old, almost dead. Looked a little like someone that worked in a funeral parlor." Anna shrugged. "I thought I saw him reach his hand out to the back of my head but I pulled over and it was just gone. Hang on you just passed the hotel!" she cried as Camelot disappeared from the mirrors. "Where are you going?"

"I have some business I need to take care of and you said you needed to go with the car. Just a warning, you are going to have to stay in the car when we get there." Dean didn't break his concentration with the road but she could see the smirk play across his face.

"I'm not some puppy you can leave in the car. Take me with you, I promise I'll be as quiet as church mouse." She pleaded.

Dean snickered.

"What's so funny?" Anna asked with a frown. "I promise I'll be quiet."

"Nothing. I'm sure you will be quiet. Look, you can come but I have to warn you, what I do, it might not make a whole lot of sense but you have to promise not to say anything, no matter how strange things get."

"One time when I was little I snuck into my dad's office and read some confidential military reports. I never told anybody but there is some seriously fucked up shit in this world and not all of it can be explained away like I might want it to be. I can hold my tongue." She assured. At this point they were way out in the middle of nowhere, almost in another state they were so far away from where they started.

They turned onto an unsealed mud road following a long line of other cars, mostly beaters and clunkers with old grannies behind the wheel. Anna was starting to wonder exactly what Dean and Sam did for a living and then she realized Sam wasn't there.

"Where's your brother?" Anna asked as the grass that grew up to the side of the road got longer.

"He's following up on another lead." Dean responded, also looking at the grass.

"That makes you sound like a detective, are you a detective?" She asked, knowing the answer was no.

"Nothing so formal." Dean finally responded.

"It's really not my business." Anna held her hands up. She decided that if he wasn't going to tell her what he was doing it probably wasn't worth pressing.

"I could get to like you." Dean smiled and Anna returned it after a minute.

"Hmm, I'm a likeable gal." She shrugged as Dean cut the engine, parking near a midsized brown house that looked slightly dilapidated. But what really caught her attention was the giant white tent that took up the entire cleared front yard. An even larger sign told her that they were at The Church of Roy La Grange. In between the words, in fine print were the words 'faith healer'. "What are we doing here?"

"Okay, so there is something you should know when we go in there." he pointed at the house. "A week ago I was hit with a large dose of electric shock. My heart was damaged; basically I was one bacon cheeseburger away from a coronary. The doctors gave me a month at most, and it was bad. Sammy found this guy from a friend and we went to see him yesterday." He saw Anna's raised eyebrow. "I was as much of a skeptic as you were, but he put his hands on my forehead and look at me now." He held his hands out. "I'm healthy, more than healthy, I'm healthier now than I was before the bolt hit me."

"So what? He healed you?" Anna asked, finally deciding that was the question she wanted to go with. It was a lot cleaner than why this had anything to do with work.

"I don't have any other explanation for it, that's why we're here maybe I can figure out why." Dean looked so earnest, so angry, so passionate. Anna looked at him for a minute and nodded.

"Okay, I'll stay silent. Let's get some answers." She matched his glare for a minute before he turned away. She could have sworn she saw the trace of a smile on his face.


	4. Chapter 4

Keeping silent was harder than Anna imagined it would be. She thought it would be a lot hokier, she thought it would be a man in a crisp white suit and a microphone taped to his jaw, she thought he would look and act like the man on the television. But he didn't and she wasn't ready for that. Roy Le Grange was blind; he was a sixty year old, white man that was very, very, blind. As far as Anna could tell he meant every word he was selling, he genuinely believed God was picking people for him to save. Anna looked at him for a second as he started his spiel about how he got his powers and was cured from cancer. The lines weren't new; it was the same scam everyone had heard. He was dying; God saved him, cured the cancer, and left him with the ability to cure others.

Anna smirked and caught the blind man's wife, Sue Ann, look at her with a scowl. Anna dropped her gaze and looked at her shoes. She should have just stayed in the car. It took her a minute to realise that Roy was talking to her, she only noticed after Dean nudged her with his foot.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" She asked with her best smile as she pretended to nurse her now cold cup of tea.

"I asked if you believed in God." He repeated.

"Um, I was raised Episcopalian." She answered kind of lamely. Anna's cheeks flushed when she thought about the last time she had been in a church, she had been looking for wedding venues.

"No, no, I asked if you believed in God." Le Grange repeated and, despite being, blind she could almost feel his eyes piercing her.

"Um, I want to but I haven't seen a whole lot of reason to." She finally answered.

"God doesn't work in the realm of reason, Ms Fulton." He smiled and Anna winced back.

"Oh, does he work in the realm of abusive boyfriends? The kind that beat women to the ground, so hard that it literally shreds the heart muscle? Twelve years I spent with the devil himself and God didn't intervene; a MAC 50 did that. I want to believe in God, he sounds like a man you want in your corner but for some reason he doesn't think my corner's worth staying in. Who am I to judge whom God has deemed worthy? I guess I'm just envious that it wasn't me." Her speech started off as a joke but it ended so much more intense than she had expected.

"I wouldn't be so sure that God has given up on you." He smiled. "You should come to church this afternoon. I think we can see proof that God hasn't given up on you." Roy turned his attention back to Dean. "The Lord chose you, you are a good man and your mission is incomplete."

Mrs Le Grange escorted them out and Dean seemed a little preoccupied with the shelves of books coated in dust.

"Thank you for the tea and truly kind words." Anna remembered her manners as she walked out.

"Of course dear, we hope to see you this afternoon." Sue Ann smiled. She seemed too willing to accommodate them. For Anna it was suspicious but she kept her mouth shut, she had already talked too much to be a church mouse.

"I'm sorry, that man got me on a roll and I don't know why but I let him get to me. I know I said I would be quiet, I'm sorry." It wasn't worth getting into a fight right then. She was feeling off, talking about Robbie did that to her.

"It's fine. I have to call Sam, you should go wait in the car." Dean looked annoyed but Anna didn't think the anger was directed at her, he had seen something.

The ride back to the motel was silent. The more Anna thought about it the more she wanted to go back to the church. Maybe she was crazy but the old man had really gotten to her and Dean claimed that he was actually healed. Her bruised nose hurt more as the day went on and she could feel the swelling worsen.

"I need to take the car out for a little bit and then I thought maybe I would go back to the church." She finally stated to the silent car. "Can you guys live without some wheels for the next couple hours?"

"Come inside for a minute, let me talk to Sam about all of this." Dean offered.

"That would mean letting me in on the big secret. Telling me about what the church had to do with work? Why you have leads to things? Dean, you don't want me in that room any more than I want to be in that room. Let me go find some clothes and I'll be back in thirty minutes. Then you can let me know if you want to come with me to the church or stick around here or whatever."

"You're going to take thirty minutes to shop?" He looked like he didn't believe her.

"Well, I have to pay for your car so I'm a little short on cash right now. I don't have a whole lot of choices. I'll be back in thirty minutes." Anna promised.

"Fine." Dean grudgingly handed her the keys to her own car and she snatched them before he could change his mind.

Dean left and Anna peeled out of the car park. She wasn't exaggerating her lack of funds to Dean, she really had no money and aside from her old uniform she didn't have anything to wear to church, it might not be a formal thing but something told her jeans with a hole in the knee and a paint stained tee-shirt weren't going to be appropriate.

The town's local salvos didn't have a plethora of options. It was mostly men's clothing, or stuff that looked like a ninety-year-old grandma would wear. It took her all of five minutes to realise that picky wasn't an option, all she could do was pick things that came in her size and even that was limited. She came out with a slightly too large sunflower dress with a rather tacky eyelet lace collar, a blue gingham dress that was slightly too small and reminded her of The Wizard of OZ with slightly more starch so that it fanned out at the waist, and a thick wool sweater in a garish yellow that stunk of cheap perfume. On her way out she slipped a pair of worn leather shoes into her bag and neglected to remember to pay for them

She wasn't going to win any awards for her look, but she would look like an innocent farm girl from Nebraska and something about that seemed appropriate for church. When she pulled back into the parking lot at the motel she saw Dean's face peering out the window, like he was looking for her, Anna looked at her watch, she was three minutes early. Why was he so nervous?

She got out of her car and walked over to their room. She debated going to her room first to change but decided it wasn't going to make a difference which room she changed in and they were going to need the car. This way she killed two birds with one stone. Anna knocked once, no answer, she frowned. She had just seen Dean's face in the window; she knew they were in there. She knocked again and this time she thought she heard a crash.

"Uh, Sam? Dean? It's Anna, I just wanted to let you know I was back and the car's all yours if you need to go somewhere." She called through the door, leaning a little closer so that they could hear her.

Suddenly the door flew open and a slightly winded Sam smiled at her.

"Sorry, I was uh, in the bathroom." Sam lied and Anna wondered again why they felt the need to lie when they were so bad at it.

"That makes total sense while neither of you could have opened the door." Anna let out a small huff of air as she peered around at Dean slamming the door to the bathroom shut. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, yeah." Sam moved his gigantic body aside and let her step into the room.

"So I'm back and if you guys need a lift anywhere before I head off to the church I would be happy to take you." She grasped her plastic shopping bag in both hands as she swung around to face them. "Actually I was hoping to use your bathroom to change in. Mine is a little -" she paused and made a face. "I think something's living in mine" Anna smiled.

Sam made a noise and tilted his head at Dean. Dean frowned and cocked his head to the side. Anna could tell they were having a conversation with each other, she and her sisters used to do the same thing.

"Sure." Sam finally answered but Anna caught Dean rolling his eyes. Apparently Sam had misread the conversation.

"Thanks. I hate my room, last night I couldn't get to sleep because I think there is a family of rats in the bedside table." She barked a laugh that didn't feel like a laugh; there was certainly nothing to laugh about. She walked into the bathroom and shut the door.

Their bathroom was nicer than hers but not by much. She wanted to stay barefoot for as little time as possible. She quickly shucked her pants and pulled on a pair of thigh high socks, because Anna didn't care how poor she was, she was never going to be poor enough to buy something that touched a stranger's crotch. The yellow of her dress and sweater along with her bright red hair wasn't a pretty sight. The shoes she had stolen were significantly more comfortable than the boots and her calves finally felt like it was getting a bit of a rest. She was about to leave the bathroom when something clunked in the bathtub.

Anna first thought it was a rat and she was going to run away screaming but after a second of no new sounds and no furry little body making an appearance she decided it probably wasn't a rat. And because it wasn't a rat she wanted to know what it was. Slowly, as if afraid something was going to pop out and attack her she inched towards the tub. Anna pealed back the curtain and her mouth dropped.

It wasn't a rat.

It was a mountain of stuff. Weapons of every kind imaginable littered the bathtub. Pistols, rifles, knives, a crossbow, throwing stars, axes, hammers, and any other kind of weapon were there. And then there was some really weird stuff, dream catchers and crystals, strange powders with funny smells.

But that wasn't even the scariest part; there were maybe fifty badges, all with different names. FBI, CIA, US Marshal, State Police for at least six states, Homeland Security, Health Inspector, and the list went on. She was busy looking at a military identification card that named Sam, Wedge Antilles, when she saw it. A manila folder bursting with papers that looked printed off the Internet. She read a couple of the headlines. There were several clippings from the local paper, obituaries, a man that died of a heart attack, one with cancer, there were five others like it. The next sheet of paper she found was a picture.

A hash knock on the door jolted her out of her shock.

"Sorry just a minute, these stockings are a little tricky." She called before returning to look at the paper.

The picture was of a tall cloaked person carrying a scythe and a strange looking tilted cross, underneath the clearly hand drawn image were the typed words, 'The Reaper'. Anna sucked in a breath.

"Oh Fuck." She whispered to herself. She had fallen in with crazy men with an arsenal in their bathroom. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." She straightened up and smoothed out any wrinkles in her dress.

_'__Don't let them know you're on to them. Who knows if they are crazy or not, they might try and take it out on you.'_ A voice in her head whispered. Anna took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom. She caught the tail end of the brother's conversation.

"It's fine, she wasn't taking a bath." Sam defended.

"She's been in there for a long time." Dean argued back.

"Sorry, I saw one of my stockings had a run in it. I was trying to make sure the dress covered it." She flipped up the skirt of her dress and showed them the small run on her upper thigh. "It does."

"Oh there you are!" Dean smiled. "I was starting to think you fell in. How about a beer?" He was being too friendly.

"Before church? What the hell, it's not like I can actually save my soul. Sure." If she were honest she needed something stronger than a beer after what she had just seen but she would take what she could get.

Dean smiled and turned his back on the two of them.

"So did you guys come up with a plan? Am I dropping you off somewhere?" She asked hopefully.

"Actually we thought we would head to the church with you. I enjoyed the reverend's sermon. I thought you didn't believe what he was selling?" Sam asked as Dean turned back around and handed her an already open beer.

"I don't, I think he's crazy. You can't heal people and if you can it's not God helping you. But he was kind, and a kind man gets further in my book than a snake oil sales man." She looked at Dean as he awkwardly held his beer up to toast something. It took her a minute but she raised her bottle to meet his.

"To the truth." He muttered.

"Hear, hear." Anna nodded. "So, Mister Antilles, how's the Alliance doing? Death Star's giving you any trouble?" She took a sip and winced, she had disregarded the one thing she knew she had to do, fake innocence.

Sam spit out the gulp of beer her had just taken and most of it landed on Anna. Slowly she used her thumb to wipe at her eyes.

"Gross." Anna muttered. "Look, you guys do whatever you gotta do, it's not my business. You just might want to be better at hiding the evidence. The bathtub isn't a good hiding place."

"That's all you have to say?" Dean demanded with a frown.

"That and this beer is a little watery." Anna held her hands up. "I know better than to mess with you, I saw the guns and I'm not going to tell anybody, but I would like to know about this Reaper. Is that why you are here, the deaths and the faith healer? You guys think, like ghosts and stuff?" She was desperately trying to put the pieces together but nothing was fitting.

"Maybe we should sit down." Sam offered as he moved to the table. "We can explain everything."

"Everything?" Anna looked unconvinced.

"If you want." Dean glowered at Sam as he sat down so that they were both facing her.

"Can you tell me about the easy stuff first?" Anna laughed and took another swig of the drink in her hand. There was something so monumentally screwed up about this whole thing. She was going to sit here and talk about ghosts like they were real to a couple of nut jobs that were breaking the law in about ten different ways.

"Everything you thought was a story, it probably wasn't." Dean grimaced and almost refused to make eye contact with her.

"What do you mean? Like Bigfoot?" Anna asked with a chuckle.

"No, he's a legend." Dean rolled his eyes like it was such a stupid question.

"Okay so what's real?" She didn't like where this conversation was going.

"Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts, Witches, Demons." Dean listed off at a rapid pace. "Oh and Reapers." He smiled.

"Reapers, as in more than one?" Anna took a breath and focused on what she could comprehend.

"All of that and your question is if there is more than one Reaper?" Dean looked confused and a little disappointed.

"You are handling this all very well." Sam spoke slowly like she would bolt at any minute.

"Roll with the punches, take it on the chin and all that." Anna looked at her bottle and started pealing the label off in thin strips. "So all of these things, things we joke about, all of that is real. What does that have to do with you? I mean you guys aren't one of these things right?" She questioned, figuring now would be a good time to clear that all up.

"No." Sam laughed a little but Anna didn't see much humour behind it. "No, we hunt these things, we send them back to wherever they came from."

"Like Hell? Hell is real?" Her voice adopted a slight shake; as much as she talked about going to hell when she died she didn't actually want to go there. Not if it was all the fire and brimstone as the bible described it.

"Yeah, like Hell." Sam nodded and she saw Dean nod along with him.

"So, monsters are real and the things I've been dressing up as on Halloween that's all real and you guys them and kill them and protect people? How in the world did you get started on that?" She asked with one eyebrow cocked so high it almost disappeared into her hairline.

"Our dad." Sam answered. It became clear to Anna that Sam really wanted to share this story while Dean wasn't so sold on the validity of the plan. "See, our mom died when I was a baby, a demon killed her and ever since then our father has been looking for the one that did it. Killing everything that he met along the way. He raised us to do the same."

Anna nodded as she finished her beer.

"Where's your dad now?" She asked looking at Dean to finally speak up.

"He's missing, but he left us a job to do and we are going to get it done." Dean was as stiff as a board and it was blatantly obvious that he was uncomfortable spilling the beans.

"Okay." Anna bobbed her head up and down more out of habit than actual consent to an idea.

"Okay what? Why aren't you freaking out? Why aren't you throwing things around?" Dean demanded as he quickly rose out of his chair and started pacing. "No one takes news like this sitting down like that!" he yelled and Anna sat back a little to move away from the mood he had worked himself into.

"I could throw things around if that would make you feel better but I don't think it's going to help me process this. Dean, I lived in hell for over a decade, I was beaten and raped every day for twelve years. You want me to be surprised that evil exists? It's no surprise to me, I've known for years. The fact that you have fancy names for your evil and you are able to kill them without guilt, well, that's just your benefit." Tears welled in her eyes as she thought about Robbie. "You want a vampire? I watched the blood drain from my body as he cut my skin to ribbons. A werewolf? He bit into my side so hard that I had to get stitches. A witch? He cursed over my head as he beat me because his dinner wasn't ready. A demon? He did all of those things and smiled as he did them. You want a reaper? Because for twelve years my life was in his hands." She took a breath and steadied herself. "Your evils don't scare me, they don't even shock me."


	5. Chapter 5

They looked at each other for a minute while Anna caught her breath and steadied her heart rate. She looked at the large watch on her wrist and noticed that she was going to be late. As much as she disliked the methods Roy Le Grange was using, as much as she thought they were crazy, despite everything in her body telling her that it was a bad idea, she wanted to go back to the church. Maybe she really could be healed. Anna let herself think of the future without her scars, a future where no one looked at her like a charity case. It was something she never let herself think about, something she wouldn't even dream about but now there was the possibility that it could actually happen and all rational thinking flew out the window.

"Okay, I'm going to go to the church. Are you still coming?" She asked.

They didn't say anything. The two men looked at each other and Anna saw that they were talking to each other again.

"Yeah," Sam nodded and this time it seemed like he had gotten the sign right. "But we are going to need a favour from you." He looked like he regretted telling her anything but that didn't stop him from plundering on. "This faith healer. He can't really heal people, well he can but he can't."

Dean must have seen the confusion on Anna's face as Sam tried to explain everything and he stepped in.

"He's basically switching who lives and who dies." Dean explained. "Some how he has bound a reaper, one of many, to do his dirty work for him and every time he saves a life he takes one."

"Bound a reaper? So hang on, a reaper comes and collects your soul when you die and takes you to heaven or hell, right?" She saw their nod and continued. "And by binding it you basically make it your bitch?" Another nod. "Well how do you do that?"

"Magic." Sam met her glance and made a face that looked like he was almost begging her not to run away.

"Like Harry Potter?" She took a breath and calmed the panic she was feeling.

"Only it's dark stuff with sacrifices and blood and bones." Dean explained still not sitting back down. "I swiped this from the house, it's an old journal that gives instructions on how to bind a reaper." He held up the book and opened it on the table. "This was inside." He held out several newspaper clippings all of them were on hair trigger issues. Abortion, gay rights, flag burning, there was even one about the protesters outside of Roy Le Granges church.

"So you think the Reverend has bound a reaper and is healing people and killing these guys?" She asked softly. Dean and Sam nodded and Anna let out a breath. "Guys, I talked to this man. Even if I believe in all this stuff you guys are selling here, I would bet all the money in the world that Roy doesn't know. Besides, he's blind, what would he do with a book?" She stared at their blank faces. "Oh come on, don't tell my you didn't think about that!" She scolded.

"Fine, then it has got to be the wife." Dean looked angry as he started pacing again. "It's one of them and if it's not the man of God, it's his wife."

"Okay, so how do you kill a reaper? And how can I help?" Anna asked, figuring it was better to act like she was gung-ho to help and if it was too hard she would ditch them at the church.

"You don't kill a reaper. They aren't evil; they just take people when it's their time. You kill the person controlling the reaper." Dean informed her.

"Hang on! You're talking about killing some old man's wife. He's blind; you can't kill her! Is she one of those things?" Anna made a gesture with her hands to show she was talking about witches and vampires and stuff.

"No, she's human, just human." Sam looked at Dean a little reproachfully.

"I'm not going to help you kill her." Anna looked at them like they were crazy. "You are talking about murder."

"She's picking out people to live and die based on her own twisted morality." Dean hollered and Anna straightened up.

"So kill her if you want to but I'm not helping you." Anna stood up and slammed her fist on the table. "I'm not going to stop you but I won't be your pawn."

"It's not like you haven't killed before!" Dean threw back at her.

Anna lost it. She flung herself across the room at him and knocked him off balance. They rolled on the ground between the beds, Anna clawing at his face and any other skin she could reach. Dean pinned her to the ground and held her wrists together above her head. Anna spit in his face and his hold on her arms loosened, she wriggled out of his grasp and stood up panting.

"How dare you?" She spat. "How dare you pretend to know what it's like to kill someone? Not something, someone, not a creepy crawly, a person, a person that despite making bad choices has done good things in their life."

"Okay, look we don't have to kill anyone." Sam had turned back to his laptop and was pointing at the screen. "As long as we destroy the thing that binds the reaper to the wife it should break the power." It was clear he was trying to make peace keeper and Anna wasn't sure which she was more offended by, the fact that he had so calmly accepted Dean's solution or the fact that he had labelled her such a non-threat to his brother that he didn't even try pulling her off of him.

"So, how do you do that? What would it even look like?" Anna asked as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"It would be like an alter or talisman or something like that. And it would be dark; the stuff needed to bind a reaper is dark. It would take a sacrifice." Sam looked like he was reading off of the computer. Anna couldn't really understand computers, she tried but most of the time she ended up confused, she had broken several computers in her anger.

"Okay and so how would you destroy it?" She asked again.

"Smash it, burn it, whatever it takes." Dean rubbed at a set of scratches she had left on his cheek.

"If you need help with that I'm your gal. I can smash with the best of them. Sorry about the," She wiped her finger over her cheek a couple of times to indicate the scratch marks she had left. "Marks."

"We need you to distract Le Grange. Give us some time that we can find the alter and get rid of it." Sam explained.

"Distract him? It's going to be a tent full of people and he's going to give a sermon. His wife will be by his side just like she was at the house. They aren't going to come after you, why worry about it?"

"We need you to make sure he doesn't heal anyone else." Sam was getting annoyed with her inability to understand what exactly was going on. "If he does he will kill someone."

"Well how the hell am I supposed to do that?" Anna frowned and her eyes went wide.

"This afternoon he showed so much interest in you and we think he is going to try and heal you." Dean sat on one of the beds and looked at her. "You have to make sure he doesn't."

"Heal me? What would he try and heal me of? I know I have a couple scars but I'm not about to die." Anna whispered as she sat on corner of the same bed. "I mean if someone is going to die it shouldn't be to keep me pretty."

"What about your heart?" Dean asked.

"Well I'm not going to live to one hundred but until very recently I didn't think I was going to see the far side of thirty. I still might not but I'm not going to die on the wrong end of a belt so I'm calling it a win. I don't need to be healed."

"Need to or not he's going to. He wants to save you because you made such a compelling argument." Dean smiled at her in a patronizing way.

"I'm glad to hear my life is a compelling reason to kill people, Dean!" Anna yelled. "Honestly, that makes me feel just peachy! I'll be in the car. I'll be your stupid distraction. It was my life, Dean, I grew up with a shitty father, I found a shitty man to make a life with, and then I killed him." Anna walked to the door and opened it. She had almost walked out before she stuck her head back into the room. "If you think I played that little song and dance to get healed of a couple scars, you're dead wrong." She let the door slam shut behind her as she walked to her car.

She sat behind the wheel and patted at her pockets for the keys. She checked her purse. They weren't there. Her keys were missing.

"God damn it!" She yelled as she slammed her hands on the wheel. "Oh fuck!" She even stomped her feet a little.

"Looking for these?" A smug face grinned at her through the window as he jingled her keys in front of her. "You really should keep better track of your stuff."

"Damn it Dean! Give them back."

"No, you can sit in the back this time." Dean nudged her as he opened the door and Anna scowled. "You are the shortest." He pointed out with a wink like she was going to just drop her panties for him.

"It's still my car." She argued.

"You can hold this." Dean acted like he hadn't heard her as he threw a worn army green duffle at her.

She looked at him for a minute before she realised he was holding all the cards. He had the keys and the weapons. She was only useful to them until their car was out of the shop.

"You're an ass." She muttered as she crawled into the back and stretched her legs out to the side.

It took longer than she remembered to get out to the church. People were streaming into the tent and Anna took a breath. She was suddenly getting nervous about all of it. She suddenly wasn't so sure she wanted to be a distraction.

"Okay so I'm just going to go in there and sit towards the front?" She double-checked as she watched them slide pistols into the waistband of their jeans.

"Yeah, he will seek you out." Sam encouraged and Anna managed to give him a little smile.

"And if he doesn't?" She couldn't hide her worry as she started ringing her fingers. "What should I do if he doesn't pick me? This isn't the bouquet at the wedding I can't just elbow my way to the front."

"I'll be there in the back if it doesn't go to plan I'll make sure the whole thing get's called off." Dean assured her. He slid a magazine into his gun and smirked.

"That's comforting." She stated sarcastically. "C'mere." She beckoned Sam closer and adjusted the collar of his shirt. "Be careful, okay?" She looked him in the eye as she said it. Anna wasn't sure where the bout of protectiveness came from but she was rolling with it because it was the only thing stopping the contents of her stomach from making an appearance. Sam nodded and Anna smiled with a nod.

She started walking away and she could feel Dean close beside her.

"Aren't you going to fix my shirt too?" He chuckled like it was all a big joke.

"Yours is fine." She glanced at him sharply. "I don't know why you think this is so funny, maybe this is some twisted way you get your rocks off, maybe acting like a jerk is the only way you can express an iota of emotion, but either way I refuse to fuel your fire."

"Oh come on I thought we liked each other." Dean smirked again and this time Anna stopped walking to face him.

"The difference between you and me is that I haven't become jaded to all of this monster crap and I can take it seriously."

"I take my job seriously." He grasped at her upper arm with a killer grip. "I don't need someone telling me three seconds into knowing about me and what I do to tell me that I don't take my job seriously."

Anna's nostrils flared as she glared at him. In a motion so fast it surprised even her, her hands shot up and grasped the collar of his shirt pulling them closer together. She stretched up on her toes and planted her lips to his. It was a soft kiss and her actions had caught him off guard for a minute. Anna pulled away from him and smoothed back of his collar down.

"Then do your job." She whispered as she broke away from him and walked towards the front rows. She got to the first row of chairs and took her seat. It took her a second but she wiped at her lips and bit down on something soft. Gum.

The Reverend's speech was short and it seemed to touch on all the easy ones. The world was awful, there weren't enough believers, we have to pray for them, we have to try and save all of them. And then he got to the interesting part.

"My friends, I had a conversation with an amazing woman this afternoon and she chose to confide in me about her past, she spoke of how she wanted to believe in God. She thought God had abandoned her, but we know God has not abandoned us. He gives us the strength we did not know we had. He gives us the strength to break from the Devil's grasp. He gives us the strength to seek redemption." He held his hands out. "Where is she? Ms Anna, come up here. Please, let this be your redemption. Let our prayers of healing fuel you to find God's path." He smiled and Anna knew that was her cue to get up, to somehow stall for time.

Slowly Anna got out of her seat and saw Sue Ann holding her hand out to help her up to the platform. Anna was visibly sweating by the time she got up on the elevated stage. She blocked out the clapping and forced her eyes to find Dean in the sea of people.

"Reverend, please, my story wasn't me looking for your healing. I'm not -" She paused wondering how she was going to end that conversation.

"Not what?" The reverend asked in a voice loud enough for most of the front rows to hear him.

"I'm not worth your time, not worth the miracle." She finally finished as she watched Dean slowly work his way up to her. He made a circular motion with his fingers telling her to keep going. "I – I've killed, how can the Lord look kindly on that?"

"Do you hear that folks?" He asked the tent full of people. "Oh Anna, that isn't how this works. I am merely a tool for God, He looks into your soul and He saw something in you, He wants to be in your corner. You only need to accept him." Anna was listening to him but she was watching as Sue Ann as she tried to causally leave the tent.

Anna caught Dean's attention again ant tried to gesture with her eyes over towards the retreating wife. Dean must have seen what she saw because he started to head the same way but he was blocked by the throngs of people, all packed in to see the miracle.

Le Grange smiled as he grasped at her shoulder and slowly inched his hand up so that it rested on her forehead.

"Please there are people that really need this, I can live another twenty years before any of this becomes an issue." She reasoned softly.

"God doesn't want you to have to deal with the ramifications of an evil man. God see's a place for you in this world and it is bright and full of life, his vision for you isn't full of the pain you carry." He stated before turning back to the crowd. "Please friends pray with me."

Nothing happened for a minute and Anna thought that maybe Sam had destroyed the alter and this whole thing was over. But then she felt it, something coursed through her and the sheer power of it sent her to her knees. It was almost painful the energy that flowed through her.

"Please, I don't – I can't –" She finally shouted causing Roy's hand to shift but the power coursing through her didn't stop and she tried to fight it but she couldn't really find a way to do it.

The feeling of power flowing through her lessened and she could finally stand on her feet.

"God wants you to complete your mission." Roy spoke in a voice that trumped her own even though he barely spoke louder than she did.

"I don't want a gift from God because I don't believe I can live up to the enormity of that he would entrust to me."

"God chose you because he knew he could trust you to complete your path." He placed his hand on her forehead again but this time the power didn't course through her, this time nothing changed, she stood there waiting for something to happen. After a minute he pulled his hand away.

"Something is wrong." He muttered. "Sue Ann!" He called with no response.

Anna forced her way off the stage and towards the exit. Something in her gut told her that this was over, and that whatever was binding the reaper and killing those people it was gone.

"Sam! Dean!" She called as she finally reached the open air. "Oh my God!" She yelled as she tripped over the body of Sue Ann Le Grange. "Oh God! Someone help call 9-1-1! Mrs Le Grange, oh God!"

"She's dead, Anna, the reaper took her." Dean whispered as he hauled her to her feet. "When the bond was broken he took out his revenge for imprisoning him. She's gone."

"You didn't kill her?" She asked quietly. "You promise you didn't kill her?" For some reason that was almost more important than the actual murder.

"I didn't kill her. There was nothing we could do to stop it, we tried but there is no stopping a reaper." Dean assured her.

"And you are okay? And Sam is okay?" She clarified.

"Of course we know how to do our job." Dean smiled.

"Can we leave?" Anna asked as she saw Sam sidle up to his brother. "This place gives me the heebeegeebees."

"Yeah, I destroyed the alter and Dean smashed the amulet so I think we can call our job done."

"Okay, I'll drive." Dean smirked as he led the way back to the car his hands patting his pocket for the key.

"Oh will you?" Anna asked with a smirk of her own. She held up the key ring on her index finger. "You get really distracted when you kiss someone, don't you?"

They stopped at a diner on the way back to the motel and Anna excused herself to the restroom. She was washing her hands when she looked up at the mirror and her mouth dropped open. The fresh stitches on her nose were gone and the swelling and redness were invisible. She ran a shaky hand over her face, expecting to feel the uneven ridges she was used to with the scars. Instead her face was smooth. Slowly she pulled down the collar of her dress and sweater, looking for the long slice of a scar it was gone.

"Oh my God." She whispered into the mirror.


	6. Chapter 6

Anna quickly flipped up the skirt of her dress and rolled down the stockings the covered her legs. Instead of the angry crimson scars that had decorated her thighs for years she saw nothing but unblemished skin. She ran her hand over her now smooth hip; the cigarette burns were gone. Her hands looked like porcelain, they were softer than she could ever remember. Even the burn mark she had given herself in her haste to pour a cup of coffee was gone and all that was left was smooth baby skin.

"Oh Lord in heaven above." She whispered. "What have I done?"

She heard the door to the restroom creak open and she quickly straightened out her dress and pulled her stocking up to where it belonged. A small girl that looked about seven walked in and smiled before disappearing behind one of the stall doors. Anna took a deep breath and nodded into the mirror before she walked out and back to her table.

Somehow she managed to keep her mouth shut about what she had found in the bathroom. She smiled when her food came and cut into her burger.

"So what did you think about today?" Sam asked as he moved his salad around on his plate.

"Are you asking me if I believe you about this monster stuff or how I'm feeling after tripping over a dead lady?" Anna asked.

"Jesus!" Dean scolded. "Do you want to say that any louder? I don't think the people the next state over heard you." He looked over at the booth next to them and waved with an awkward smile. "How ya doing?"

"My name's Anna not Jesus and I could have been louder if I wanted to." Her face was blank as she looked at him. "And for the record I'm doing just fine with the dead lady thing. The monster thing, well there was definitely something not natural about that healing mojo." She bit into her burger. "So, this is normal for you guys?"

"Yeah. Just another day on the job." Dean smacked Sam on the back causing him to lurch forward into the table. Sam glared at Dean and tried to shove him back but Dean dodged his brother's attempt.

"And you guys have been doing this since you were little?" Her eyebrows rose and furrowed together. "That seems like a great family bonding time."

"Yeah, it's been real great." Sam rolled his eyes and Anna got the impression he wasn't so sold on the amazing qualities of the job.

"You guys never wanted to get out? Go do normal things, school, job, wife, kids, a house with a white picket fence?"

"Don't you?" Dean's comment didn't really make sense but she could tell that she wasn't going to get a straight answer.

"Oh yes, I always wanted a wife." Anna wiped at the grease on her face before starting in again. "Someone to make me dinner, clean my clothes, bake me a pie, she sounds lovely. The sex thing would be a little tricky but I'm flexible."

"I'm sure you are." Dean's eyes raked her form.

Anna gave him a withering look.

"Seriously? I lay out a sexual innuendo so thick you need a knife to cut through it with seven million different jokes for you to make and you come back with 'I'm sure you are'? Honey, it's been a long time since you had to work for your sex, hasn't it?" She threw her napkin onto her empty plate. "I'm done whenever you are. Put your wallet away, Sam." She made a waving motion as she saw the tall brother pull out his wallet. She couldn't put her finger on it but something about Sam and the look he always wore that made her want to protect him. Something about his eyes told her that he had lived through a lot of crap. She felt a connection to him.

The short way back to the motel was another intense ride. As Anna parked she finally realized that she needed to clear something up about her scars.

"Do you mind if I come back to your room for a minute? I have something I need to show you." Sam and Dean shared a look before nodding their consent. "Great it will only take a minute." She heaved a sigh as she pushed her body up out of the low-rise car.

Her whole body tensed up as they walked closer to the door. She wasn't afraid of them but she was terrified as to what it might mean. If someone died because of her, out of vanity, she didn't know what she was going to do. Anna waited for the door to close; she just stared at the beds and wrung her hands. It was a nervous habit that she thought she had kicked once she had gotten out of Robbie's grasp. Finally she head the door click shut and she started talking.

"So, today. You guys stopped the reaper thing before it could kill anyone right?" She clarified as she pulled off her sweater.

"Anna," Sam's voice had a question in it but he didn't ask anything so she went on talking.

"I'm just asking because," She started unbuttoning her dress. Looking down to make sure she still was scar free. "If someone died because of me," she kicked off her shoes. "If they died so I could be pretty again." She dropped dress and turned to face them. "I'm not going to be okay with that."

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" Dean wore a grin but Anna could see past it.

"Start at the top." She pointed at her nose and noticed Dean's eyes drag away from her chest and up to her eyes. "Sam, you stitched me up yesterday. I heal fast but not that fast. You said it yourself it should have a scarred." She scooped her hair up and tilted her head to the side. "You saw the one that was on my neck, the one on my thigh." She turned around again with her hair still tucked over to one side. "I had four long ones running down my back at the shoulder blades, they aren't there anymore, are they?" She looked over her shoulder at them. "I had a set of teeth marks right at my ribcage. Where did they go?" Her voice shook a little.

"Anna, put your dress back on." Sam moved forward and picked her dress up off the floor he tried to press it into her hands but she pushed him away and moved between the two of them.

"You think being naked bothers me, Sam? I want answers. I don't care about being naked, why would I care now? I'm pretty. I haven't felt this good about how I look in ten years. If some innocent person gave up their life so that I could be pretty, then God damnit everyone and their mother is going to know it! Did I kill someone?"

"If it hadn't been you it would have been someone else." Sam assured her.

Anna looked at him with horror etched in her face.

"Than they would have died to give someone else a heart, a lung, a leg. What did they die to give me? A pretty play thing for me to trash?" Tears threatened to spill over but she kept them down. "I smoke, a lot, I drink, to excess, and I eat a bacon cheeseburger at least once a day. I will never be able to treat this gift with the respect it deserves. I have been given this miracle and all I can think about is how I am going to waste it!"

"You don't have to waste it!" Sam argued but Anna's focus was centred on Dean.

His playboy smile was gone and his skin had paled to a ghostly white.

"You knew this was going to happen didn't you?" Anna questioned. Dean didn't have to answer for her to see the truth. "You could have stopped it. You saw where it was going, you could have stopped it, you were there and you let it happen. What the hell is wrong with you?" She demanded and this time tears really did start to fall. "You let me be a murderer, why would you do that? I told you from the start I didn't want to be healed, I only agreed because you said you needed someone up there to distract him. Would you have stopped it if I weren't up there? If he were saving someone that actually needed it, would you have stopped him then? An innocent person died." She paused for a minute and closed her eyes. "Who?" she finally whispered.

"What?" Sam questioned and Anna rounded on him with a glare.

"Who died? Who did I kill?" She demanded. "Which one of Sue Ann's picks did I take?"

"Anna, do you really want to know?" Dean finally spoke up the expression on his face was hard to read but Anna saw the guilt.

"Yes, I do, because whom ever it was died for me and the least I can do is put flowers on their grave."

"We can find out." Sam nodded. Anna glanced at him and she thought she saw a hint of guilt flash in his eyes as well but it didn't stay for long.

"Good. I need a drink." She needed so much more than a drink but that was all she could think to say as she grabbed her clothes from Sam and slipped them back on. She left the room silently.

Thankfully the town they were in was the kind where a bar was in walking distance no matter where you were. The vinyl barstool she plopped herself into was the same she would have found one street over. Anna gestured the bartender over with a wave.

"Can I get a whisky neat?" The man was already pouring her drink as she spoke. "And if I can entice you to leave the bottle that would be the best news I've had all day." The skinny man with a handlebar moustache looked at her for a minute before he shrugged and set the bottle on the bar next to her. "Thank you." She handed him her credit card before swallowing the burning liquid in one quick motion. Anna had already poured her second drink as the man stood in front of her.

"Here you go Ms Fulton." He handed her back the card and she grunted her thanks.

Anna sat alone at the bar for maybe ten minutes before some guy came up to her.

"Rough day?" He asked with a smile.

"Surprisingly not the worst day of my life but that's not saying a whole lot." She returned his smile and leaned a little bit closer. Maybe it was the booze or it could have been that she was just feeling particularly crappy at that moment but this man being nice to her was really what she needed. "I'm Anna, it's nice to meet you." She held her hand out and they shook.

"James." The man responded with another smile.

Everything about him was average; he was an average guy of average height, average weight, sandy brown hair, and muddy brown eyes. He wore a crinkled cheep suit and his tie ugly orange striped was loosened so that it hung around his neck at an angle. He was absolutely ordinary in every way, and that was what made him perfect for Anna. She wouldn't call it love, she probably wouldn't even call it like, but he was attractive enough to make her forget about other stuff.

"So James, tell me about yourself." She patted the seat next to her and waited for him to make himself confortable.

Anna listened for about ten minutes to him drone on about the insurance business. She added the appropriate responses when he paused but mostly she was thinking about her day.

"Hey James." She finally interrupted after he took a break from talking about some accident at a factory of some sort. "I think I'm going to head back to my motel now and I think both of our lives would be better if you came back with me." She placed her hand on his upper arm and stroked it lightly. She saw his eyes go wide with excitement as he nodded. "Awesome."

Anna struggled a little as she stood up and she looked at the bottle. It was a third of the way empty. James was more than helpful walking her back to the motel and Anna could sense his anticipation. She fumbled with her keys before letting him just do it as she leaned against the wall. As she waited for him she saw a face in the window of Sam and Dean's room. She squinted a little before she recognised who it was. Dean. For some reason that aggravated her, just him watching her, judging her, caused her eyes to narrow. Who was he to judge her?

Without thinking she pulled James away from the door and wrapped her arms around his neck pulling him into a sloppy kiss. She could feel him push her further into the wall she was leaning against. When they broke away Anna looked at the window, Dean was no longer there.

"Let's go inside." She whispered. Her heart wasn't really in it but she needed to be that close to someone. She needed to feel needed, appreciated.

Sex with James was, in a word, boring. His hands weren't warm enough, they didn't catch all the right places, his kisses were sloppy with too much tongue and he expected her to fall to her knees just a little too much. Twenty minutes later they both lay naked on the bed, James was breathing hard but from what Anna didn't know it wasn't like he had to work very hard for his.

He leaned over to reach the jacket of his suit and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

"Want one?" He asked breathlessly.

"Sure." Anna agreed as she sat up and wrapped a sheet around her body. She waited for him to hand her a smoke before she started talking. "So, as much fun as this was." She stood up and dragged the sheet off the bed with her. "It's really time for you to leave." She took a puff off the cancer stick between her teeth as she swept up the sheet so that it didn't drag on the floor.

James got up and slid his boxers on.

"Are you sure you don't what me to stick around?" he questioned slipping his grey trousers on but leaving the belt undone. "I mean we had fun right?" He asked as he walked towards her with the rest of his clothes.

"Oodles." Anna agreed with a tight smile. She held the door open and pointed, with her cigarette, which way he should start walking. "Now get out." Her tone was a little harsher that time.

"You don't even have my number." James stalled and Anna sighed as she let her head rest on the door.

"I don't need your number, I'm not going to call you." She clarified. "Now seriously, get out." As she said the words Dean strolled by her open door with a candy bar in his hand. Anna saw him pause instead of going into his room.

"Fine." James spat. "Bitch." He muttered as he walked out.

"It was nice meeting you too! Next time you could use a little more foreplay before you jump right into things!" She called and didn't miss him giving her the bird. "What a sweetheart." She rolled her eyes and walked back into her room, pretending she didn't see Dean.

Anna climbed into the shower and washed her new porcelain body. Stepping out of the shower she realised she should be tired, after everything she had been through she shouldn't have any more energy but she also understood that she wasn't going to be getting to sleep anytime soon. She got dressed and slipped on her shoes before heading out again, this time in search of coffee. There was a twenty-four hour place that had a sign for hot coffee but when she tried to go in she saw that they were closed.

Groaning she headed back to the motel and was about to go into her room before she saw the light on in Sam and Dean's room. As much as she didn't want their company she didn't want to be alone more. She knocked lightly and waited for one of them to answer the door.

Dean stood there looking expectant.

"So did you two find out who I killed yet?" She asked as she pushed past him. "Hey Sam." She smiled as she sat next to him.

"Come on in." Dean remarked as he closed the door and turned around.

"We haven't had much luck with the list of people in Sue Ann's journal. In a town this small a report is going to come up pretty quickly but as far as we can tell all those people on the list are home safe tonight."

"Is it possible that I was just healed and no one died?" Anna asked hopefully, all the while knowing the answer was no.

"That isn't how a reaper works. He transfers energy from one source to the next."

"Like jumper cables?" Anna scrunched her nose.

"Yeah, here's some information on them." Sam handed her a stack of papers.

On the top of the first page was a picture of a cloaked figure holding an hourglass. Anna held up the paper to better inspect the image, the whisky from earlier still clouding her vision. It took her a moment of trying to read before she gave up.

"What's this?" She asked hitting the paper with a little too much force.

"That is one of the theories on reapers, one that we know to be true. Reapers stop time." Sam explained as he glanced over at Anna.

"What?" Anna frowned.

"Yeah, everything that happened to you happened in the time span of maybe a minute." Sam was looking at his computer screen. "They literally stop clocks."

"A minute? No way." She scoffed.

"Why, how long did it feel like it took?" Sam broke his concentration on his computer to look at Dean.

"Forty minutes at least, and not a pleasant forty minutes." Anna shivered as she remembered the way the power felt as it coursed through her.

"It only felt like forty minutes for you?" Dean barked from the bed. "I felt like I was up there for at least an hour."

"Maybe that's because you were actually dying and needed some fixing, I went up for plastic surgery. Granted there was a lot of it but it was all cosmetic." She rolled her eyes and turned back to the pages in front of her. "Hang on, they stop clocks? Like the one in my car?" Her eyes went wide as she realised what that meant. "That man I told you about, the one I imagined in the back of my car, that wasn't a reaper was it? I was just seeing things right?"

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

"Not exactly. See, reapers are only visible when they are coming at you and the man you saw sounds a lot like the one I saw when I was being healed." Dean explained. "I was healed exactly at 4:17 and that's the same time your clock stopped."

"So that heart attack I was feeling, that was our energies switching?" Dean shrugged and Anna took it as a yes. "Why didn't he finish the job then? Why am I still alive?" Anna sat back in her chair trying to process everything.

"We have a theory about that." Sam picked up a pen and started flipping it around in his palm. "You said you had heart issues right?" He clarified.

"Uh, yeah, the muscle had been seriously weakened by the years of stress and beatings. I mean it was ticking fine but it certainly was well used." Anna admitted.

"We think that the process was started on you but because it would essentially be trading a broken one in for a damaged one the reaper decided to find a better candidate." Sam looked at her for a second, gauging her reaction to it all.

"So what? My ticker wasn't good enough for you?" Anna snapped at Dean.

"How are you mad at me about that? Did you want to die?" Dean argued back.

"No," She pouted. "I just don't understand why mine wasn't good enough for you." She lifted her head up slightly, enjoying the fact that she no longer felt a twinge in her back as she did it. Then she remembered that the only reason her back didn't hurt was because someone was dead and her head dropped. "I'm no use to you guys here. You'll just spend all night trying to explain this crap to me. I'm going to go work on my car." She slowly stood up and put a steadying hand on Sam's shoulder. "Thanks, Sam." She was sober enough to recognise her own slurring of words. "I love whisky." She mumbled as she walked out of the room.

"You don't have to be such a jealous dick." She heard Sam inform Dean just as the door clicked shut so she couldn't hear his response.

Anna walked over to her car at a slow pace trying desperately not to trip over her own feet. She had just gotten pretty again she didn't need to ruin it because she couldn't handle her liquor.

"Alright baby, let's see what makes you tick." She whispered as she opened the door and wiggled herself into the driver's seat and grabbing a flashlight from the glove compartment. Twenty minutes later she was upside down with her legs sticking straight up in the air her feet wiggling to keep her balanced on the seat as she tried to figure out what was wrong with the radio.

He next thing she knew a bright light was burning her eyes and someone was prodding at her side rather aggressively. She blinked and raised her head slightly. Her dress had hitched up around her hips and her body had slipped so that her head and neck rested between the gas pedal and the clutch.

"Shit," she muttered as she tried to wipe away the fuzz feeling that coated her tongue. "I must have fallen asleep out here." She lazily wiped at her eyes before she could see Sam standing over her with a confused and sympathetic frown on his face.

"I brought you coffee." He greeted.

"Thanks" Anna grinned as she tried to sit up but the change in position caused her stomach to flip flop. "Fair warning, move or I'm going to be sick on your shoes." She muttered, giving him just enough time to step to the side before she emptied her stomach on the asphalt. She looked at the sick for a minute. "I honestly didn't think I was that drunk last night." She gave an impressed frown before looking up and holding out her hand for the coffee.

Anna took a sip before she fixed her dress and sat up all the way, her feet carefully avoiding the throw up.

"On the bright side I think I fixed the radio." She dug in her purse and found her keys. "Wanna find out?" She patted the seat next to her and waited for him to walk around and get in. "All right, I worked on it all night." She clapped her hands together before turning the engine over. "Let's see how I did." She fiddled with the dials a little before she found a station.

Loud gospel music blared from the speakers and a smile broke out on her face.

"I did it!" She hollered before punching the air. But her celebration was short lived as the music turned to static and then died. "Damnit!" She growled. "I really thought I had it." She rested her head on the steering wheel.

"You had it for a second there." Sam snorted and his whole body rocked a little.

"You're enjoying this." Anna accused with a laugh as she pushed him in the chest a little. "So are you just out here to laugh at me or do you have a name?"

"Yeah, twenty minutes ago a report came up, Henry Cho died yesterday at 6:28, same time you were healed. Anna, Dean, he – he felt guilty. He won't admit it but he felt guilty when he heard your story. It didn't help that you were first pick to die for him."

"Sam, I'm not mad because he didn't stop it. I'm mad that I agreed to it, that I let myself want it even though I knew it would kill someone. And then I got it and someone, this Henry Cho, died and I have a body count before I turn thirty, which really sucks. You know, whatever, it happened and I have to pay my respects and the best way I think I can pay my respect is by not wasting what he gave me." Anna sighed as she stared out the window.

"How are you going to do that?" Sam asked.

"I haven't figured that part out yet but I think I'm going to start with some flowers and then I'm going to make sure no one else dies like this." Anna nodded.

"You don't have to worry about the reaper anymore. We took care of it." Sam wrinkled his features as he looked out the window.

"No, not that, this whole monster thing. No one should die like that." She leaned back in the seat and tilted her head to look at him.

"Monsters? Like you want to hunt monsters?" Sam clarified.

"I don't know maybe, maybe I could just, you know, stop them when I see them." She shrugged.

"Anna this isn't something you dabble in. These things could kill you, it's dangerous." Sam's voice got hard and his pitch rose a little.

"You do it! It could kill you! But you get to run across the country, what for? Kicks?" Anna yelled back.

"I'm just trying to look out for you!" Sam turned so his body was facing her.

Anna laughed as she shook her head.

"Sam, maybe we need to take turns trying to parent each other because when we do it at the same time we just end up mad." She chuckled as she looked at him.

"Do you want to work out a schedule or something?" He went along with her laughing.

"Yeah, you can have Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday to play Dad. I'll take Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to play Mom." She laughed a little more.

"But what about Sunday?" Sam faked concern.

"How about we let Dean take Sunday? I expect it will be a day of strip clubs and bad fast food." Anna scooted sideways in the bucket seat a little so that she could hold her hand out. "Thanks for finding that name for me." She smiled.

"You know Dean helped with the name too." He smirked.

"Dean needs a kick in the pants. I have no doubt that he's good at what he does but it would be good to see him knocked down a peg."

"He was always like that, even when we were little, you know he's actually a little bit better than before." Sam nodded.

"Before what?" Anna looked over at Sam and took another sip of her coffee.

"Before I went to college." Sam looked down at his fists as he said it.

"College? Wow, so you actually did it? You got out, went to school, got a job, all that."

"Yeah, I was going to be a lawyer, almost got a wife." Sam muttered and Anna's jaw dropped.

"No." Anna thumped on his back a little with a smirk. "So what happened? She didn't say 'no' did she? To a pretty little thing like you?"

"No, no, I'm pretty sure she would have said yes." Sam's smile was gone and Anna could tell something bad happened.

"What happened?" She asked. "I mean you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I'm just nosey a guess."

"No, it's fine, it is Monday right? You know how I said a demon killed my mom when I was a baby?"

"Yeah." Anna whispered.

"Well the same one killed my girlfriend and I'm doing everything in my power to find him and kill him." His jaw was set and Anna could see the fury hiding just behind his eyes.

"Wow, I – I'm sorry Sam. I mean, shit, that's a lot. Do you want any help killing the bastard? I don't have a whole lot of experience with demons but I am dangerous given the right tools. I am sorry Sam, no one should have to deal with this." She didn't ask for his permission as she wrapped her arms under his and pulled him in for a hug. "I haven't had a mom in a really long time but I imagine she would do something like this." She muttered as she tucked her chin on his shoulder.

"I never had a mother so you are kind of setting the bar." He laughed and she felt his arms wrap around her. "Anna, you stink."

"Hey!" Anna pulled back with a laugh. "I do smell like a bar don't I?" She wrinkled her nose, as she smelt the dress she was still wearing. "A bar and the man you brought home last night." Sam raised an eyebrow at her.

"Just making sure the new body works." She pealed herself out of the car and started walking back to her room.

"Does it?" He called as he slammed the door to her car.

"I wouldn't know, James didn't really know how to make a body sing." Anna turned around and held her hands open.

"A good mother wouldn't say that!" Sam called back at her.

"I never said I'd be a good mother. I'm going to take a shower and I'll see you in your room. I'll even be nice to Dean."


	7. Chapter 7

She was back to her slight dirty jeans and tee shirt. Without a jacket on the image was slightly offensive and could have been interpreted as mildly racist but it was all she had to wear.

"Damnit!" Dean cursed as Sam opened the door for Anna. "I got blood on my fed suit." He picked at the stain that had set into the cheap white shirt.

"I can probably get that out for you if you want." Anna offered as she walked forward and tried to take the shirt from Dean's grasp.

He was shockingly quick as he held the fabric up over her head. He wore a little crooked grin as he looked at her and shook his head slowly.

"How would you know anything about bloodstains?" He questioned. "Nice shirt." He appraised as an after thought, his eyes flicking down to her waist and back up.

The white shirt had a print of a rooster with Chinese lettering on the bottom and the phrase "cock sauce" adorning the top. On the back were the words "too hot for you"

"You know most stains are all the same. People just like to talk about how hard it is to get bloodstains out because they think it makes them sound tough." She reached her hand up and grabbed the sleeve that hanged down so that if brushed the top of her head. "You know what it really makes people sound like? Like they can't take care of themselves."

"That just sounds like you don't know a lot about bloodstains." He fired back and Anna fixed him with a glare.

"Do you want to know the exact amount of times Robbie sliced my skin open before I had to be somewhere? If I threw out every piece of clothing that got a little blood on it I would have nothing to wear."

"Who slices into someone's skin for kicks?" Dean muttered, obviously thinking she couldn't hear him as he turned away.

"He needed to after a while. It was the only way he could feel like a man if you know what I mean." Anna answered as she placed the fabric up to her nose. "Yeah I'll just go to the store really fast and pick up what I need."

"What about the guy last night? Did he feel like a man?" Dean called as she had almost left the room.

Anna looked at him for a second, trying to figure out what he was asking. He could have just been talking about the sex asking if she thought it was worth it, but Anna suspected he was asking if he hurt her without actually bringing himself to seem like he cared. She blinked slowly.

"No, and he didn't make me feel like a woman if you were wondering." Anna finally responded. "But you probably knew that from the peeping tom act you pulled. If I liked people watching me I would have sex in your room."

"You said you were going to be nice." Sam looked at her with his big brown eyes and Anna snorted.

"I am being nice. I'm fixing his shirt and a nice person does that. What else would you have me do?" The door was almost closed and only Sam's head was visible in the space between the door and the wall.

"For what I'm about to ask him? You might want to bring a pie back too." Sam whispered with his eyebrows suspended high on his forehead. "Here take the keys and let yourself in, oh, and a credit card."

"Hang on, wait! What are you going to -" she started to talk but the door was already slammed in her face. "Never mind, I don't even know about what kind of pie you like." She threw her hands up before digging around in her purse for her sunglasses. "Apparently now I'm Jax Adder." She looked at the card.

Anna got in her car and drove off muttering to herself and wondering about what Sam was talking about. The market was exactly the same as it was two days ago. She picked out the lemon juice and baking soda before moving over to the pastry section. Unfortunately this time there was tons of pie. Pies of all different flavors and she had no idea where to start.

"Okay, okay, where to start, where to start?" She moved over and picked up a second basket, temporarily abandoning her first basket.

She moved to the rack of pies and one by one she loaded pie into the cart. A small portion of her was enjoying it; she was able to just pile stuff in the cart without thinking about the price or the quantity. But mostly she was worried about why she needed the pie in the first place. What was the pie going to do? She had ten stacked neatly in the basket before she picked up the other and made it to the check out counter. The pimply kid working the cash register looked at the basket full of pie and smiled.

"You having a party?" He laughed and pushed up the rim of his glasses.

"Yeah, a pie party." She nodded slowly as she handed over the credit card Sam had given her. "Oh and this." She grabbed a six-pack of beer. "A beer and pie party."

Anna quickly signed the receipt and collected her bags before high tailing it out of the market, she really didn't want to get caught with a fake credit card. Half way through the drive she slapped the dashboard three times and like magic the radio started blasting gospel. Anna squeaked in surprise before she focused on the road again. She pulled into the motel and rushed with her several bags to Sam and Dean's room. She heard yelling but she braced herself and slipped the key into the lock. Stepping forward she peeked her head in and ducked as she saw a shoe fly across the room at Sam.

"Come on, man! She's just going to do it anyways we might as well take her with us at least we can keep her safe." Sam dodged a flying rack of pamphlets before he started talking again. "Come on, you thought she was worth someone dying to fix her scars. She's just going to die if she does this on her own."

"I let her be healed because I wanted her to get away from the evils she was talking about, not run at them head first." Dean shot back at him.

"You have two options, take her with us and keep her alive or let her die trying to take out these things by herself."

"Hey guys," Anna interrupted. "I'm back and, um, I brought pie." She finally understood what the pie was for. It was a bribe; Sam was trying to bribe Dean into letting her hunt things with them. "Only I wasn't sure what your favorite was so I kind of bought all of them." She held up several large bags. She carefully set the bags on the table and pushed one of them down and exposed the beer. "Because what goes better with pie than beer?" She laughed awkwardly. "So what's going on?"

"My brother is under the twisted impression that you are going to hunt monsters." Dean barked at her as he took a beer and started peaking through the boxes of pie.

"Well, I hadn't made up my mind about anything but yeah I was thinking it would be the best way to do some good in the world. You know, if someone died for me I might as well carpe diem." She shrugged. "I don't need your approval, I can do whatever I want. I'm a big girl I can take care of myself." She folded her arms and glared at him as he started pacing.

"Well you can't come with us!" Dean shook the box he was carrying around, looking for a fork.

"Well I never asked to come with you! Why would I want to spend time with you?"

"You can't even fix the radio of your own car! How are you going to hunt monsters?" Dean asked and Anna looked at Sam with a look of betrayal.

"Why do you act like those two things are even related?" she flung a plastic fork at him as he passed by. "And I fixed the damn radio."

"Really? How'd you do it?" Sam asked, clearly trying to change the topic of conversation.

"Oh, I hit it three times on the ride back here. I should have known the only way to make a bitch work is to slap her around a couple times." Anna nodded with a smile before she turned back to Dean. "Don't you start with me, Winchester! You leave me behind and I'll just set out on my own. I don't need you to play babysitter."

"Oh like hell I'm leaving you behind. You aren't leaving my sight." Anna scowled "You are going to live a full and productive life and get married and have children and live in a house with a white picket fence if it kills me."

"I don't want that shit! That sounds like death all warmed up! If I wanted that, if I wanted to piss my life away in the suburbs, I would have stayed with Robbie! Damnit Dean, that's not what Henry Cho died for!"

Dean was still yelling and Anna had slumped into the chair and had mostly tuned both of them out. At the end of the day she was going to do whatever she wanted and Dean wasn't really in a position to stop her. Anna heard her phone chirp on her bag and quickly fished it out of the bottom of her purse.

"Hello!" She muttered over the yelling.

"Yes is this Anna Fulton? This is Billy I have your car here at AutoJax. The '67 impala with the scratch on the passenger side door?" A rough voice yelled over some mechanical noises and men yelling.

"Guys, shut up!" Anna yelled, covering the bottom of the phone. "Oh my God! You totally caught me off guard!" She smiled and her voice became breathy. "I was just getting out of the shower when you called, I'm not even dressed." Anna giggled as she rolled her eyes.

"Oh really?" The man asked and Anna could hear the tension in his voice. "Well we have your car here and it's all ready for you to pick up."

"Oh yeah?" She asked as she motioned to Dean for a knife. "Well that's great news, I was told that it wouldn't be ready for another couple hours." She scowled as Dean tossed a plastic knife in front of her. She turned to Sam and made a motion for a knife.

"Well I thought it would take a bit longer than it did and I knew I couldn't keep you waiting." Billy chuckled.

"Awesome!" Anna nodded as she stood up and unbuttoned her pants.

Dean gave her a whistle as he saw her hand dip in before he realized the pocketknife Sam had given her was also in her hand. Anna glared at him to shut up as she started cutting off her pants and making shorts. "Well we can be there in an hour. Gosh you must have been working on it all night! I'm not sure how we could ever repay you." She kept up flirting as she started on the second leg.

"You could tell me what colour panties you're slipping up your legs right now." His voice had lowered and the background noise quieted.

Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! You sure are forward." She laughed as she picked at the strap of her underwear running across her hip. "Well Billy, who said anything about wearing panties?" She questioned as she leaned over the table and pulled the legs of her pants off. She heard his breathing and it caused her to break into a grin that would trump the Cheshire Cat. "Well I better go but we will see you soon." Anna chirped as she snapped the phone shut.

"What was that?" Dean was looking very confused and angry while Sam looked slightly horrified by her act.

"Like I have two hundred bucks to spend on your ass! You don't even thank me for the pie!" She snorted. "The only reason I'm not calling that man back and telling him to turn your crap car into scrap metal is because I find your brother pleasant company!"

"Isn't he a little young for you?" Dean shouted. "How old was the man last night?"

"Why do you care?" Anna yelled back. "I barely know you, I don't want to travel with you, and you have horrid taste in pie!" She screamed as she looked over at the nearly empty cherry pie tin. "Now are we going to get your car or not?" She forced her voice calm but the tension was still palpable.

Dean and Anna glared out of the car as they sat next to each other. Anna started the car and the gospel music started up again. While she had enjoyed it when it was telling her the radio was up and running but now it was just obnoxious. She tore out of the parking lot and started down the road.

"In the glove compartment there is a tape marked Randy Travis, can you put that in?" Anna grumbled about asking for favors before she looked over at his face. Clearly he was going to do no such thing. "Fine, I'll do it myself." She groused as she pulled over on the shoulder of the road and leaned over Dean's lap to get at the glove box. It took her a minute of searching before she found it.

Anna was just lifting her head up when she heard the sound of metal on glass. She looked over and saw a shiny metal badge glaring at her.

"Oh for the love of all things holy." She muttered. "What now?" Slowly she rolled down the window and smiled at the police officer. "Yes sir, how can I help you?" Anna asked.

"Ma'am if you could step out of the car please." His tone was brisk.

"What, excuse me, have I done something illegal?" she asked as she stepped out.

Before she knew what was happening the policeman had grabbed her by the wrist and twisted her into the car. She felt the cold of metal against her wrist and let out a small yelp.

"You are under arrest for soliciting sexual favors, and public indecency." He barked. "Sir please stay in the car."

"Look you have this all wrong. I'm not a prostitute, I was just getting a tape from the glove compartment." She complained as the officer dragged her over to the cruiser. "Oh for the love of God, you can't be serious! You don't want to do this, do you know who I am?" She finally yelled, she was going to regret playing this card.

Anna ignored Dean's yells out the window. She turned around to glare at the officer. The man was frozen as he looked at her.

"My name is Anna Fulton, my father is Lieutenant General Jonathan Fulton. He's reports directly to the President and is one of the Chiefs of Staff. So before you go arresting his daughter on a bogus charge you might want to think about just what he can do to you for smearing my good name."

"Yeah right." The man snorted but she could hear the pause in his voice.

"Go ahead then arrest me, see what happens, see how long you keep a job. I can get a swat team on your ass so hard you will think you tumbled into the red light district." She sneered. That bit was a lie but she didn't see the harm in playing up the truth. "Now you can just let us go back about our day and we can forget about this little mix up or we can arrange for your name and station house to be dragged through the mud." She growled.

The next thing she knew the cuffs were being removed and the officer was apologizing for the mix up. Anna glared at Dean as she started the car and drove off.

"So your Dad is some big wig in the White House." Dean stated finally.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Anna was still glaring at the road as she drove. "You know I could have gotten arrested because you were too stubborn to just do something for me." She finally slammed her fist on the steering wheel and let out some of the anger she was feeling.

"If you think I'm listening to Randy Travis you are out of your mind." Dean laughed as he crossed his arms.

"Oh please, you don't really think that's what's on there do you?" She yelled as she picked up the tape and jammed it into the stereo.

It took a few seconds for the song to start but when it did it wasn't country. Aerosmith blasted from every angle and Anna grinned.

"My dad used to call it devil's music so I had to hide it when I was younger." She yelled over the music. She bobbed her head along with the song and she watched Dean watch her. She thought she caught a smile on his face but as soon as she saw it the smile disappeared.

They pulled into the garage and Anna got out. Her shorts were met with whistles and catcalls. It took everything in her not to strangle someone.

"Hey, I'm looking for a Billy." She asked the man behind a grubby counter. "My name is Anna Fulton, I'm here about the impala."

"What colour is it?" The man asked his eyes trained on her body.

"It's a '67 impala hard top. You have a lot of those sitting back there?" She asked with a smirk. "Can I please talk to Billy, we have the payment to discuss." She smiled and leaned over the counter a little.

"No, yeah, let me go get Billy." He fumbled for words as he turned around.

Anna waited five minutes before she saw Dean amble in and waved at her before he took a seat in a plastic chair. Anna suddenly felt large hands wrap around her waist and it took strength she didn't even know she had not to snap his neck.

"You must be Billy." She tried to force the shaky notes out of her voice as she turned to face him.

"And you must be Anna." He grinned as he moved to lean across the same counter. He was missing several teeth and was chewing a lump of tobacco. She had to hide her distaste as smiled.

"The one and only." She winked. "I was hoping there was a back room where we could discuss payment." She smirked as she pulled a condom out from her back pocket.

Billy visibly gulped as he nodded and Anna caught his glance at Dean.

"Don't worry, my brother has got a little patience." She smirked as she looked over at Dean who was steadfastly avoiding eye contact making Anna think that he had been glaring before she had looked over.

"He doesn't protect his sister from big bad men." Billy grinned as he spoke.

"Oh he does, he just cares about his car a lot more." Anna smirked.

"I'm going to tear your ass in two." Billy whispered into her ear, leaning closer than Anna would have liked with his smell. He didn't wait for her to respond before he dragged her towards a door she assumed led to an office of some sort.

"Promises, promises." She giggled as she let herself be pulled away.

"No, no," Dean finally stood up. "Okay, Billy, how much did you say it was going to cost to fix this? She's not going anywhere with you." The glare he fixed Billy with was something Anna never wanted to be on the receiving end of.

"Dean, shut your fat trap!" Anna demanded. "Let the adults do the work here." She pushed his shoulder a little and tried to communicate with her eyes what she was trying to do.

He wasn't getting the message because he was too busy glaring a hole into Billy's forehead. The mechanic hadn't backed down yet, which slightly impressed Anna.

"Dean!" She slapped him upside the head. "Just because you can't get laid doesn't mean you can cock block me!" Finally she caught his eyes and he backed down.

"Fine." He grumbled before turning away.

"It doesn't sound your brother really wants to wait." Billy looked at her.

"Well he's going to have to." Anna shrugged. "Now show me this back room." She had to damper her excitement over a room but her plan was finally coming together, something plans hardly ever do for her.

The room was similar to how she expected. Essentially it was a break room, there were a couple chairs that surrounded a cheap card table and a worn black leather couch was placed under a window that would have looked out into the waiting area of it weren't covered with yellowish blinds. Next to the couch was a wooden board covered in pegs made out of rusted nails. Several sets of keys rested on the hooks and Anna instantly recognized the set that belonged to the impala. Someone had taken a small amount of tape and written the words 'hot chick' over the ring.

"So are we going to?" Billy made a crude gesture with his hands and Anna grimaced.

"Yeah, no I don't think so." She shook her head slightly and shrugged. "Sorry I'm just not feeling it, and really you shouldn't either with your nose and everything."

"What's wrong with my nose?" Billy asked.

"Oh that's right, I forgot." Anna took a step forward and swung her fist into Billy's nose. She heard a satisfying crunch sound and she retracted her fist.

"You bitch!" He yelled.

"Oh come on Billy, words hurt." She informed him as she placed her hands on his shoulders and kneed him in the groin. He fell to the floor and Anna came up behind him and whacked him on the side of the head. "Sorry Billy." She whispered as she leaned over to make sure he was still breathing. "I just can't pay for this right now and you were gross." She stepped over his unconscious body and picked up the keys. "Sorry Billy, really." She walked out of the room and carefully shut the door behind her.

Anna tossed the keys to Dean as he looked up from an upside down copy of Sport's Illustrated.

"Run." She whispered, walking past him with a slight amount of speed.

"What?" Dean asked as he stood up.

"What part of the one word did you not understand? See this why we can't travel together! You can't listen to me and you think I can't think for myself and you try and make decisions for me." She kept walking and Dean kept pace.

"I do listen." Dean argued.

"No you don't, you think you know everything there is to know and you won't even bother to tell me what you know. Would it kill you to share a little bit of the knowledge? Get in your car!" She demanded as she pointed over at the car.

Anna smiled and waved at the mechanics as she left while Dean refused to make any eye contact. They drove the short distance to the motel and pulled up next to each other.

"Don't stick around here too long. It's only a matter of time before Billy wakes up and realizes I took the car." Anna spoke as she walked into Sam and Dean's room. "I have bent over backwards trying to make this right with you. I buy you dinner, I do that stupid healing, I drive you to Timbuktu and back, and then I buy you pie and you don't even say thank you!" Her chest heaved as she took in a gulp of oxygen. "I'm sorry I scratched your precious car, I'm sorry I slept with someone you didn't like the look of, I'm sorry you think I'm wasting my life because I want to do what you do! Maybe, I don't even know if I want to." She took the last part back because she really wasn't sure what she wanted to do.

"This isn't something you can maybe want!" Dean finally yelled as she opened the door. "If you do this you have to go all the way not just sometimes when the mood strikes you."

"Oh and we have come full circle!" Anna laughed. "I'm done listening to this crap! You still haven't even said thank you." She punched the table. "Is it not in your vocabulary? Can you just not bring yourself to be thankful? I'm done, help me or don't, it's not like your job takes a genius to figure out."

Dean cocked his head to the side and glared at her.

"Sam could you give us a minute?" Dean asked as he kept looking at her.

"Yeah, I was actually just headed out. I'll, um, just go." Sam muttered as he grabbed his jacket.

The door clicked shut and Anna rounded on Dean.

"Damnit Dean! What are you going to yell at me some more? Because I honestly can't think of anything I would say in front of you that I wouldn't say in front of Sam." She yelled.

Dean didn't respond as he crossed the room in three long strides. He roughly grabbed at her shoulders and pulled her face up to meet his. She could feel his hot breath brush across her lips and she slowly put together how close they were.

"Oh." She sighed, as she finally understood.

"Thank you." Dean whispered against her lips before he sealed his lips to hers.


	8. Chapter 8

As they broke away Anna tried to catch her breath. It wasn't a kiss she would be forgetting for a while. Some kisses were too wet, slightly too much tongue, and awkward for each party. Some had an overage of teeth in the mix and that led to similarly awkward feelings. More often than not a kiss wasn't something Anna was going to think about. This kiss was different. This one didn't feel like it was proving anything, it just was. Dean wasn't trying to prove how good he would be in bed; he wasn't testing how good she would be. They just were two people with so much tension strung between that it came out as a deeply passionate exchange. Anna's hands were clutching at the sleeves of his jacket and she was standing on her tiptoes. Slowly she released her grasp but he kept her close to his body, she felt like she could feel every curve and ridge of his body.

Anna lifted her hand and cradled his chin tenderly before she slapped him clean across the face.

"What the hell was that for?" Dean roared as he took a step back.

"You think I'm going to sleep with you!" She accused. "I've known you for all of two days and you think I'm going to hop in bed with you. Well I have news for you Buddy, it doesn't actually turn me on to be treated like the mud on your boot!"

"Oh doesn't it?" Dean yelled. "Why else would you stay with an abusive toddler?" He shouted several feet away from her.

Anna let out a shriek as she charged at him. She ran towards him with so much force that they tumbled back into the wall. Her fist slammed into the wall next to his head with enough power to make a small hole in the drywall.

"You know nothing about me!" She screamed into his face. "Do you want to know why you don't just leave a man like that? Because leaving him is as good as signing your own death warrant!" The spittle that flew out of her mouth as she screamed landed on his face and he blinked a couple times.

Anna noticed how close they were again and this time she felt Dean's hands grasping just under the ripped hem of her shorts, pulling her up towards his chest so that they almost appeared the same height. He was holding her closer despite how she was yelling.

Anna's chest heaved as she looked at him, there was no denying he was handsome, she had determined that the first time she met him, but as she looked closer she noticed that his features weren't entirely symmetrical. One eye squinted in a way that the other didn't, his lips didn't line up entirely perfectly giving him the appearance that he was perpetually smirking. His nose was crooked which Anna realised was the result of several breaks. A thin scar ran across his jaw preventing stubble from growing along the line, another sliced his right eyebrow in two.

"I am going to regret this." She muttered as she grabbed his chin and kissed him again. This time there was no stopping her. She started ripping at the faded band tee he wore only breaking contact with his lips to pull it off of him.

She worked her lips down his neck.

"I thought you weren't sleeping with me? What happened to you not jumping in bed with me?" Dean asked as her hands skimmed his chest and his pushed her legs apart forcing them around his waist.

"I don't know about you but I'm not planning on doing a lot of sleeping, and I intend to do none of it on a bed." She explained, dipping her head to lick along the ridges of his now bare chest.

Dean grabbed at her thighs and kneeled down to lay her on the carpet. Anna grabbed for the hem of her shirt and slipped it over her head leaving her in a lacy cobalt blue bra. Anna didn't care for the position that put her in. She was completely at his mercy, not that she doubted he would be plenty decent, it just wasn't as much fun. Anna grasped her ankles at his hips and rolled them over, she grabbed at his belt and undid it before unbuttoning her own shorts.

Her hands grabbed at his and forced them over his head. Anna let her body lurch forward so that her chest rested over his chin, her lips falling next to his ear.

"You think if you can fuck me hard enough I'll forget about hunting the all the creepy crawlies out there?" She questioned, with her voice no louder than a whisper. "Or maybe you think I'm going to get emotional about this and you'll just act like a dick till I wimp out?" She offered as another option. "Do you want to know my favourite prediction?" One of her hands travelled south and they played along the edge of his boxers.

Dean's eyes widened and his hands ripped at her shorts. She watched as he nodded slowly.

"My favourite is the one where you miss the line." Her hand dipped into his boxers. "It's the one where you think you control this," Slowly her hand stoked at him, watching as his head tossed back and he let out a guttural moan. "The one where you think I'm falling for you, but really you've bet it all on the wrong horse. You fall for me and I break your heart."

Dean smirked and he flipped them over again.

"Sweetheart, I don't fall for anyone and I never bet on the wrong horse." His hands ran up her torso and slipped one under her bra. "Personally I'd go for the first."

"Sweetheart." Anna mimicked "I've been fucked till I couldn't walk the next morning. I have never in my life compromised when I wanted something. The last man to use sex as a power tool against me ended up dead. So really, try your damndest." She smirked as she gave him another tug and his head threw back.

Dean matched her smirk and his fingers dipped under her matching lace boy shorts. Anna's breathing hitched and her eyes rolled back. She lasted for a few minutes before the mounting pleasure became too much, he either needed to finish what he started or let her do the job he couldn't.

"Dean!" She breathed. "Please!"

"Please what?" She could hear the smirk in his voice without looking at him.

"Fuck, if you think I'm going to beg you're wrong. And if you can't do what you promised I have no desire to stay." Her voice was tight as she tried to keep her concentration.

"I think you will if I make you." Dean chuckled.

"Dean!" The anger in her voice grew and the demand was clear.

"Say it!" His voice travelled lower and suddenly she felt his lips brush against her chest over her still clothed breast. She looked up and saw him working his way down her stomach, his tongue dipping into her navel, sliding across the line of her panties.

"Dean!"

"The whole thing."

"Fuck me!" She finally yelled. "Fuck me until I don't know my own name."

This time he complied with her demands and replaced his fingers with his tongue as he pushed her panties down and slipped them off of her. Anna's fingers wrapped themselves into his hair and her legs moved to his shoulders. A light sheen of sweat had developed over her entire body, she was so close to the edge and she was about to fall off. Her fingers tightened in Dean's hair urging him not to stop, groaning slightly as he worked his way back up her body. She felt his hands working behind her back to undo her bra, when it gave way she all but tore it from her chest. Anna watched him dip his head and place an onslaught of kisses there, enjoying the slight prickle of his whiskers against her smooth skin.

His hands traced along her waist as he moved further up her body so that they were almost perfectly aligned. His mouth hovered over her lips; Anna was trying to catch her breath and failing horribly. She wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing her heels into his lower back giving him a silent message to keep going.

"It's too late to stop now." She managed to whisper before lifting her head up to capture his lips with hers. "Please."

With that first and final real beg for release something snapped in Dean, any trace of restraint he had tried to show vanished and something in his gaze changed. It was almost animalistic, the way he plunged into her causing her head to toss back at the sudden sensation of him. Her hips lifted to meet his, matching him thrust for thrust.

The sounds of their bodies meeting, the slap of skin on skin, filled the room mixed with the occasional moan from either of them. Anna was on the precipice; all she needed was a little bit more, she could feel it working up inside her like a coil tightening with every thrust of his hips. She reached for one of his hands and guided him where she needed it most. He thumb danced figure eights around her clit as his hips continued to drive into her with a steady rhythm, causing her to be pushed off the precipice she was standing on.

Her inner muscles clenched like a vice around him as she let out a moan.

"Dean," she chanted his name like a mantra as she rode wave after wave of complete bliss.

She could feel him getting closer as his movements became more erratic. She felt him release inside her and the sensation, the knowledge that she had done that, that she had cause him the pleasure he was feeling now almost sent her flying off the cliff again. Hearing her name on his lips as he rested his forehead on hers plastered a smiled on her face. As he pulled out of her she almost cried at the loss, instead she contented to roll over onto her side and throw her leg across his waist. She placed light kisses along his collarbone.

"That wasn't half bad." She muttered in between kisses.

"For a first round it was almost halfway decent." He responded with a smirk. They could both hear the humour in their voices but neither was willing to admit just how good it was.

"You know none of this changes anything, right?" Anna clarified as she stood up and walked over to the table holding all the pie. "I'm still joining the Scooby Squad, I'm still going to try and help people."

"Maybe." Dean was clearly mocking her earlier indecision. "Maybe not." He sat up against the wall and laughed.

"No." Anna shook her head and walked back with a box of apple pie with two forks and a couple beers. "I'm going to do what you do better than you do it." She handed him one of the beers in her hand before going back to her bag to pull out a cigarette and lighter. She sat next to him against the wall and lit her cigarette with a smirk at his cough as he tried to wave the smoke away from him.

"No you aren't." Dean argued back.

"Yes, I am. And I am going to screw it up the first couple times, I'll probably screw it up so bad someone will die, I'll probably screw it up so bad that I will get another couple scars to ruin my new skin, but eventually I am going to get better, smarter, faster, eventually I'll beat you at your own game." She purposely blew smoke in his face just to get a rise out of him. "The way I see it, you can either help me make sure I don't screw up or you can drive out of my life and I won't go looking for you." She munched on a forkful of pie as she spoke, trying to seem nonchalant about the whole thing.

"If we left you on your own you wouldn't last a day and you're too naïve to see even that." Dean scowled at her but he didn't say anything about the smoke. "You think it's all some sort of game."

"Don't put words in my mouth." Anna raised an eyebrow at him, grabbing his discarded flannel and slid it on. The large shirt covered her chest but slipped off her shoulders as she buttoned it up. "I know that being with you guys my survival rate goes up by about a million but I'm not going to force myself on you and I don't want to be the dead weight you drag around."

"Good because we can't afford dead weight doing what we do." Dean nodded as he took a sip of his beer.

"Well – Hang on, does this mean you will take me with you? Let me know what you know?" Anna questioned as she turned to face him.

"Yeah for the time being but you need to listen to what I say, you need to follow instructions because if you don't people will die." Dean narrowed his eyes at her and Anna smirked.

"If I knew the way to make you so agreeable was to fuck you I would have done it yesterday." She moved the pie tin and swung her legs over his. "There is one thing I wasn't able to do. One thing that I have wanted to do for a while now, one thing I haven't gotten my mind off of." She spoke slowly punctuating each word with a light kiss on his upper thigh. "Would you like to know what it is?" She teased lightly.

"I might have an idea." Dean looked like the cat that ate the canary.

"Really? Because I was thinking I would swallow your -" she paused before moving her head to the side. "Beer." She finally finished her sentence as her lips wrapped around the neck of his beer bottle. She lifted her head and drained it while she looked at him.

"You are just a little tease." Dean laughed as he pushed her back, spreading her legs.

"I, Dean Winchester, am not a tease. A tease doesn't put out; you know for a fact that I do." She giggled.

They were just getting into round two when Anna heard the door creak open.

"Guys, we -" It took a minute but Anna managed to tear her gaze away from a horrified Sam. Anna let out a yelp as she tugged Dean's shirt around her. "Never mind it can wait." He whispered before bolting out of the door.

Anna looked at Dean and then down at herself before laughing.

"I think we scared him." She whispered as Dean returned to his previous actions causing her to stop laughing.

"He. Can. Wait." Dean thrust into her with each word.

"Good." Anna muttered as she shifted her legs up to rest on his shoulders, practically folding herself in half. "Then make his patience worth it."

Thirty minutes later they had both gotten dressed in their own clothes and Anna was smoking another cigarette.

"First rule, no smoking." Dean plucked the stick out of her mouth and dropped it on the ground, stomping it out with his boot. "It kills you, makes you slower, neither are good things."

"What are you, my father? He never approved of my smoking either." Anna rolled her eyes. "But I think he mostly didn't like the image it played in the media when I snuck out of the Marine Corps Ball to bum a cigarette off the security guard."

"When did you start?" he asked from the bathroom as he loaded a duffle with the weapons he was going to take back out to the car.

"The day my mother died. She lived like a saint and got killed anyways, somehow lung cancer seemed the least of my worries."

"Weren't you ten when your mother died?" He asked was he handed her one of the duffels before loading the other.

"Yeah, what's your point?" She questioned as she walked out of the room. "You started killing things at like five years old and you think smoking's dangerous?" she snorted "different lives." She muttered finally.


	9. Chapter 9

Anna walked back into the room for a second to grab her forgotten jacket. She heard Dean yelling from the car about how it wasn't a good sign that she couldn't even remember her jacket. Anna didn't want to listen to it; she tried to block him out as she walked over to the chair it was draped over.

"Dean, it's two seconds!" She called. "What are you going to do in two seconds?" The end of her sentence trailed to a whisper as her jacket brushed against the table and pushed a stationary pad to the ground. "What the hell?" She asked, picking it up. The first five sheets of the paper were etched with thick pen lines of the same thing. Over and over tracing the same thing. Anna frowned as she flipped through the papers. It took her a second to recognise the image, it was a room with a small dresser next to a wide closet. "What the hell?" She asked again as she fumbled in her purse for her wallet. She plucked a picture out and held it up to the drawing.

There was no mistaking it; it was Cassandra's dorm room, her little sister's dorm room. Anna looked back at the photograph of herself and Cassandra sitting on the bed laughing and hugging each other. Their hair pegged them as sisters; their smiles were almost identical.

Why had someone drawn Cassie's room? Only they hadn't really drawn Cassie's room as much as they had drawn Cassie's closet.

"Anna!" Sam walked through the door. "Dean's threatening to leave without you, are you coming?"

"What? Yeah, of course I just - uh – I found my jacket." She whispered as she ripped the pages off the pad of paper and stuffed them into her back pocket. She smiled as she turned around to face Sam. "Okay, you guys lead the way." She made a motion with her hands to shoo him out of the room.

As she climbed into her car she reached for her phone, following after Dean while she called her sister. Her phone went straight to voicemail and Anna tried to squash her fear.

"Cassie, this is your sister. Give me a call when you get this. Hope Dad isn't giving you too hard of a time. I love you." She spoke with only half her brain paying attention. She let another two hours pass before she called again. Again it went to voicemail. "Cassandra, this is your sister. I know you have your phone with you. Call me!" She demanded with a slightly more panicked voice. Her sister was usually perfect about answering her phone, all three of the Fulton sisters were. Anna ended the call and immediately called Nikki. It went to voicemail too. "Nicole! God damnit, why isn't anyone answering the phone? Don't make me call the General because you know I will. Call me back." She snapped before throwing her phone on the seat next to her.

She noticed Dean pull off the highway and into a gas station and Anna made to follow them despite not needing gas or a bathroom break. She looked at her phone and sighed as she cut the engine. One more call and if no one answered she would give it a rest for a while.

"Cassandra, this isn't funny anymore!" She yelled as she heard the automatic message start again. "Answer your damn phone. Call me back or I'm calling the General." She ended the call and looked at her phonebook, her father's number teasing her. No she wasn't there yet, a couple missed phone calls didn't require angering the General.

"Who's Cassandra?" A voice asked from the passenger side window.

"Oh God, Sam!" She scolded as she jumped in her seat. "I'm going to string a bell around your neck, stop sneaking up on me!" Usually it wouldn't have bothered her but she was already on edge.

"Sorry, I'll make some noise next time. Who's Cassandra?" He asked again as he offered her a stick of peppermint gum.

"Thanks. Cassandra is my sister." She pulled the photo out of her pocket and showed it to him, Anna thought she saw his face pale a little but assumed it must have been a trick of the light. "She's the baby in the family gotta make sure she's keeping her nose clean." She sucked on the stick of gum in her mouth for a minute before remembering she hated peppermint. "So where are we headed?" She took a cigarette out of her bag and lit it.

"Ohio." Dean answered her question as he came around the driver's side and plucked the smoke out of her hand. "Sounds like there is a redneck ghost. Killing black people."

"Ghosts?" Anna couldn't keep the smirk off her face as she looked at him. "Like Patrick Swayze? Because a girl could get into that."

"Not funny." Dean glared.

"You don't think anything I do is funny." Anna rolled her eyes. She and Dean had an interesting relationship; they hated each other, every time they spent too long together things would start flying but there was also a tremendous amount of undeniable sexual tension between the two and sometimes it exploded all over everything.

Anna was just about to start in on him about wasting a perfectly good cigarette when she heard a familiar chirp come from her phone. In an instant she had her phone pressed to her ear.

"Cassie!" She exclaimed. Words didn't respond, instead an ear-piercing shriek echoed through the phone. Anna held it away from her head as a reflex before listening again. "Cassie, Cass, you there? Oh God." She screamed as she heard a clunk like the phone had hit the floor and then in the distance.

"Anna! I'm sorry, HELP ME!" It was clearly her sister's voice and it sounded like she was crying. "No, no please, no!" She heard Cassie begging before she interrupted, not sure if Cassie could even hear her.

"Cassandra! I'm on my way. I'm coming baby." She yelled into the phone before snapping it shut and starting her car again. "Get off my car, now!" Her demand was shaky but the power was there.

She threw the car into reverse as she pealed out of the gas station and flew down the highway. She saw a sign telling her she was fifteen miles outside of Creston, Iowa. Cassie was living on campus as a sophomore at Wilmore University in Virginia. It was going to take Anna most of the remaining day and night before she could get there. But she had to get there; she had to take care of her sister. She drove without stopping for hours she didn't bother looking behind her until she saw a flash of a car following on her tail. She glanced in her mirror and saw the familiar impala riding her ass.

Her phone chirped again and she didn't bother to see who was calling as she answered.

"Yes." She greeted.

"Anna?" A soft voice asked.

"Nikki! Why didn't you answer the phone?" She demanded as she tucked the phone under her chin.

"I was at lunch with the General." Anna could tell it was going to turn into a rant so she cut her off before she could get started.

"I don't care, where are you now?" She asked.

"I'm getting the kids ready for bed, you know you really pissed him off this time." She explained. "I was able to talk him down but he says you hung up on him."

"Nicole! Something happened with Cassie, something bad. She called me and all I could hear were a bunch of screams. She asked for my help."

"Oh God. Are you sure?" Nicole asked and that really sent Anna off.

"You think I don't know when something is wrong? This is our sister and you are going to doubt the validity of her screams?" She yelled.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" Nicole asked.

"I want you to make sure she's okay. I'm on my way but I won't get there till early tomorrow morning." Anna rolled her eyes; her sister was being incredibly dull for the importance of the call.

"Anna, Mike is out of town. I can't leave my kids, your nephews, alone while I run off to go check in on our sister who we both know has a flare for the dramatic."

"Find a way, Nicole! Call a babysitter and go check on your sister!" Anna yelled. She snapped the phone shut and slammed her hand on the wheel.

Her foot pressed harder into the gas pedal and she could hear the engine working hard to accommodate her speed. She only stopped for gas when she started running on fumes. When she stepped out of the car she saw Sam and Dean pull up to the pump behind her. Anna's hands were shaking as she tried to open the filler cap and failed. Hot tears pricked at her cheeks as she tried again.

"Damnit!" She muttered as she held onto her wrist in an attempt to steady her hand. She felt someone next to her and saw a rough hand wrap around hers, helping her remove the cap and place the pump into her car. "Thank you." She looked up at Dean. "Thank you." She tried to force everything she wanted to tell him but didn't have the energy to say into those two words.

"It's going to be okay." He seemed like he didn't really know what to say so Anna just nodded, she really didn't want to talk.

They were on the road again she saw a sign indicating that she was entering Virginia. She let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding. Any fatigue she was battling was gone when she saw the sign. She realised she had another two hours but that felt like nothing now that she was there.

The sun was just rising along the ridge of mountains and the brightly coloured trees make the hills look like they were on fire. Anna would have been struck with the beauty of it all as she drove up the winding path towards her sister's dorm but her insides felt like the wanted to make an appearance outside her body and her brain was going to the worst possible outcomes.

Her mouth dropped as she saw an ambulance and a fire truck parked outside of the building she knew Cassie's room was in. She found a parking spot next to a beat up station wagon she recognised as Nicole's car. Apparently she had found a sitter.

Yellow caution tape cordoned off any entrance to the building and Anna had to walk over to a police officer with a clipboard that looked like he was supposed to be in charge of the crowd.

"Excuse me. I'm looking for my sister, Cassandra Fulton? She lives here." Anna could hear the weakness in her own voice as she talked to the man.

"She's your sister?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes, is she okay?"

"Ma'am, if you could come with me please." The officer beckoned her under the tape and Anna's heart sank.

"Please, can you just tell me if my sister is okay?" Anna stalled, afraid of what she would find.

"I think it would be best if you talked to the officer in here." The man whispered and Anna could tell she was being passed off. The one with the clipboard didn't want to break the news to her, whatever it was.

He walked her into the building and up two flights of stairs before she went down a hall. She remembered the way; it was the way to Cassie's room, second door on the right closest to the bathrooms. The door was open and sectioned off with more yellow tape. Paramedics were walking out of the room with a thick grey plastic bag on a gurney.

"Oh my God." Anna whispered.

"Excuse me, Ms Fulton?" A portly balding officer questioned. His eyes were too soft he felt pity for her.

"Yes." She whispered, her eyes trained on the body bag.

"Ma'am I'm afraid I have some bad news. Her roommate found your sister this morning, I'm so sorry but it does appear it was a suicide." The man explained looking down at a piece of paper in his hands.

"What? No! Cassie was a happy girl. I spoke to her just a couple of days ago, she was seeing this guy, she was happy." Anna shook her head. "Where is my other sister, Nicole? I saw her car out front I know she's here."

"I'm sorry? There is no other family here yet." The officer looked confused.

"Your wrong, I just saw her car I know she's here!" Anna shook her head. There was a creak and then a scream from the roommate, who was still in the room. Anna ran forward into the small space and matched the scream with one of her own. Nicole had flopped out of the closet completely skinned and very dead.

The only way Anna knew it was her was from the bracelet still wrapped around her wrist. The word 'forever' was etched into the thin gold bar. It had been a gift from their mother when they were little. They had each gotten one with different words on them. Only Nicole still wore hers, Cassie's was too small for her wrist and she had transferred it to a larger chain to wear around her neck, Anna had tossed hers out over a bridge when she learned that her mother was dead.

"NO!" Anna screamed as she fell to her knees. "No!" She felt tears prick at her cheeks as she slumped against the wall. "It's all my fault. I told her to come here and check on Cassie. She's dead because of me! I killed my sisters!" She wailed as the officer scooped her up and helped her down stairs.


	10. Chapter 10

Anna talked for police for what seemed like hours. Tears stained a path down her face. After the second officer came to take her statement she pulled a cigarette out and tried to light it. Her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn't manage starting the lighter.

A hand pushed hers down while the other pulled a golden lighter out and held the flame out in front of her. Her fingers shook as she lit the cigarette before looking up. Her brain barely recognized it was Dean before she looked back at her hands.

"I killed her." She whispered between puffs.

"No you didn't." It was Sam's voice as his hand slipped over her shoulder.

"She wouldn't have been here if I hadn't called her. She has kids. I need to go get them. My dad isn't here yet; I want to leave before he gets here, I honestly don't know what I'll do if I see him. I have a cabin about an hour outside of town you guys are welcome to stay there. Or you can go I know you said Ohio." Anna kept talking because it felt better than thinking about what she saw. "How did all of her skin come off? All of it, she was still dressed but it was all gone. She couldn't have done that to herself." Anna shook her head.

"We're here now, we'll figure out who or what did this." She saw Sam throw a pointed look at Dean before the older brother spoke up.

"Yeah we can stick around for a little while." He grunted.

Anna could hear the reluctance in his voice but she couldn't be bothered to care.

"Thank you." She whispered. "Crap." She muttered as she saw her fathers Honda pull up to the building. He got out dressed in full dress uniform. She watched him yell at the police before flashing his identification card and pointing over at Anna. The man let him through and Anna stood up before smashing her smoke out on the ground with her boot. Out of habit she straightened her hair and adjusted her blue dress.

"Anna!" He barked as he walked up to her.

"Yes, Sir." She responded with a small salute. It had been the same greeting since she was eleven.

"What did I say would happen if you left this family?" He shouted and Anna flinched back.

"Sir, due respect -" she started but he didn't give her the chance to respond before he slapped her across the face.

Anna stumbled back holding her cheek but she didn't say anything.

"Hey!" Sam yelled and stepped in front of Anna in an attempt to protect her. She placed her hand on his shoulder trying to tell him to back down.

"Sam, it's fine really." She whispered. "I'm fine."

"Back down, boy." Her farther growled. "This is a family matter." His glare turned back to Anna, "you were supposed to protect your sisters and now they are dead because of your selfishness. How many people do you have to kill before you understand?"

"I'm sorry, Sir." She responded finally. "I'm back now, I'm going to take responsibility."

"Of what? Your family is dead!" He yelled. "And you were running around with strangers." His voice rung with disappointment at her actions. "Go home we will deal with this later."

"Sir, I am sorry for what happened but I'm not going home with you." She tried to remain strong. "I can't." She grabbed her bag and walked off. She made it all the way to her car before she broke down.

She let her head rest on the window as she closed her eyes. Suddenly the sadness that overwhelmed her turned to pure hate and anger. Anna's eyes opened and she looked at the bed of the truck. In one of the metal boxes she kept a baseball bat. She didn't think about it anymore as she opened the box and pulled the wooden bat out. She stormed over to her father's midsize sedan and smashed the bat into the mirror. She let out a scream and she could hear others around her scream and back away from her.

"You think you can slap me around, you think you can order me to do whatever you want? Well you can't!" She shouted at the building, she knew her father was watching. "You can't blame me for her death! I didn't kill her! I didn't kill my sisters! I loved them; I loved them more than you ever could. Your heart died a long time ago." She smashed the windshield several times before she moved to the windows. "You were never their parent! I was the only person she ever knew as a mother! You were nothing! I was her mother!"

She felt someone pulling her arm from aiming another blow to the metal of the door. Anna spun around and saw Dean standing there. The anger wasn't gone but fatigue trumped anger as she let her arm drop and she folded herself into him.

"I was her mother." She repeated as she stained his flannel with her tears. "I was her mother, I should have been there, not Nikki, me. I was her mother." She felt his hands run through her hair as she wrapped her hands around his waist. "I was her mother." She muttered again. "It should have been me."

Anna felt Dean walking her away from the smashed car but she couldn't be bothered to look up until she stepped into the car and saw that it was the passenger seat. Sam was behind the wheel and he gave her a small smile before starting the engine.

"Where am I headed?" He asked quietly.

"Back on the freeway West." She muttered, resting her head against the window. Sam nodded but didn't say anything else. It was the first time they had spent any time together fully clothed without yelling at each other.

She gave him directions as needed and before too long they were in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. The winding unsealed roads made the car shake around violently reminding her of a cheap roller coaster at the county fair.

"Turn right at the end of the road." She muttered. "It's the only house up here."

The log cabin Sam stopped in front of always used to look so appealing, now it scared her. She remembered sitting in the back of a police cruiser relaying the story again and again as she watched Robbie's body be carried out of the house. Anna took a breath before letting herself out of the car and walking up to the porch and grabbing the hide-a-key.

Walking in she thought everything should be different but it was exactly the same as the way she left it almost a year ago. The large television still sat above the fireplace, wood rested in the basket.

"So, make yourself comfortable." She tried to sound unfazed by the events of the morning. "There are a couple beds in the loft upstairs and there's a bedroom back there she made motion towards the kitchen. The bathroom is just over there. I think there's some coffee in the kitchen if you want it." She dumped her bags on the chair and wiped at her eyes. "I can stop at the store in a couple hours."

"You lived here?" Sam sounded in awe.

"Yeah, it belonged to my grandfather but when he passed he left it to me. Do you guys want a fire?" She motioned to the fireplace and set about making a fire without waiting for a response. She just needed to do something.

"Why don't you get some rest?" Sam offered.

"I can't sleep. I keep seeing her body all skinless every time I close my eyes. I need to catch whomever - whatever did this. I'm going to find them if it kills me."

The small house was silent as both Sam and Dean made themselves comfortable in the spare room but Anna couldn't make herself enter the bedroom. Every time she took a step closer she could hear the pop of the gun. She sat in front of the fire for an hour before she couldn't stand it anymore. She grabbed her things scrawled a note on a scrap of paper next to the coffee maker.

_"Went to pick up kids and get food, be back in a couple hours_." She headed out trying to make as little noise as she closed the door behind her. She looked at the note one last time and decided she needed to work on her handwriting.

As Anna pulled up to her sister's house in the suburbs she sucked in a breath. How was she going to tell her nephews that their mother was dead? She let herself in and forced a smile on her face.

"Hello? Where are my two favorite men?" She called with a chuckle.

"Aunt Anna!" She heard the scream before she saw the small child barrel into her side.

"Oomph!" She grunted as the air was knocked out of her. "Damn boy! You ever going to stop growing?" She laughed as she held Michael at arms length. "Where's your little brother? You're keeping him safe, right?"

"I try but it's hard sometimes. I told him not to run down the stairs by he did and he hurt his toe." The eight year old explained.

"Ugh I know baby's never listen that's why you're the only kids in my life. You always listen." Anna dramatized her actions. "Hey, I thought I would take you up to the cabin until your dad got home."

"Excuse me, can I help you." A young girl that looked no older than fifteen came around the corner. Her eyes were puffy and red. It didn't take a genius to realize she knew.

"Hi, I'm Anna, Michael and Tobias' aunt." Anna held her free hand out to shake with the girl. "Do you think we could talk in private? Go take care of your brother, little man." Anna pushed Michael towards Tobias.

Anna and directed the young woman over the to staircase away from the boys.

"I take it you heard about my sister." Anna started trying her hardest not to show her sadness.

"Yes!" Suddenly the girl burst into tears and flung herself into Anna's arms. "The police called and Michael answered the phone before I could get it. I think he knows, I'm so sorry they were trying to call Mr. Martins!" She openly wept into Anna's shoulder. "He's not supposed to get her until this evening. I was only supposed to work through the morning, Mrs. Martins was supposed to be back."

Anna stood there awkwardly wrapping her hand around the girl's shoulders.

"She never changed her last name." Anna whispered, for some reason that information felt very important. "Her name was Fulton."

"I'm sorry." The girl wiped at her tears and blew her nose on her sleeve.

"It's okay I just wanted to thank you for staying but I think I should take care of my nephews until their father gets back. I don't know how much Nikki was going to pay you for your time but I will definitely compensate." Anna dug in her bag for her checkbook. "I'm sorry I don't know your name."

"Louise." The girl sniffled. "Louise Milton, I'm just friends with their regular sitter, I'm not even supposed to be here."

"That makes two of us. Here, just take this and head home." Anna wrote her a check and led her to the door. As sweet as she was sure Louise was she really wasn't in a place to be comforting strangers that barely knew her sister.

As soon as the door shut behind her she felt a tug on her shirt. Turning she saw Michael looking at her.

"Where is Louise going? Why was she crying?"

"Back home and we are headed out for ice cream! Sound good?" Anna clapped her hands together as she bent we knees slightly so that she was at eye level with the kid.

She really didn't know much about kids, and what she did know was that she should never be trusted with them long term.

"Cool!" Michael smiled as he walked off to tell his little brother.

She grabbed a change of clothes for both of them and dragged them out to the car.

"Okay, everyone got their seatbelt on?" She asked as she looked over at the boys sharing a lap belt in the front seat. "Remember, we are never going to tell anyone that I let you do this." Anna warned.

"Okay" Michael nodded before grabbing an unopened ketchup packet and looked at it.

"Was' that?" Tobias asked and Anna saw the older boy's smirk.

"It's grow juice. If you can eat the whole thing you get to be a grown up." He opened the package. "I bet you can't do it."

"Yeah huh!" Tobias argued as he pulled this packet out of his brothers' hands and squeezed the whole thing in his mouth.

It took a second for him to taste the flavor but as soon as he did he spat it all over the dashboard and his brother.

"Tobias!" Anna scolded as she wiped the car off with Michael's spare shirt. "Gross. Michael, if you are going to mess with your brother at least wait until we are outside of the car."

"Sorry Anna." The boys chimed together causing her to laugh.

When they pulled up to the cabin Anna unlocked the door and the two boys spilled out with their soft serves before running up to the door.

"Inside now!" Anna yelled. "And wash your nasty little hands! Ruining my car." She grumbled.

"Look Toby! I can heat up butter with my mind!" She heard Michael shout. Before she heard Toby let out a yelp of surprise and a cry.

"Dad said you weren't allowed to do that anymore!" He cried.

"If you tell Dad I did that I'll rip the head off all your stuffed animals!" Michael threaten.

Anna yawned before she walked into the kitchen. Butter was spread over the counter and Michael rushed forward.

"Don't worry, we'll clean it. Promise!" He rushed.

"Damn right you will. I treat you like an adult so you have to act like it." She scolded before lightly thumping him on the back of the head. "Be nice to your brother, he's the only one you get."

"Are you nice to your sisters?" The question was innocent but Anna couldn't answer without feeling the sadness edge back into her voice.

"Yes, because I'm perfect of course." She laughed but there was a hitch she only hoped they didn't hear. "Listen, I need you to keep it down for a little bit there are people upstairs sleeping." She explained.

"Who are they?" Toby asked.

"Just a couple friends."

"Can we go see them?"

"Only if you are quiet and stay on the stairs." The boys had run off before she could finish the sentence.

Anna started pulling out the groceries she had bought and rolled her eyes. This was exactly what she wanted to get away from. It was the exact reason she had set out in her car on the first place. It wasn't that she couldn't be a homemaker; it was that everything about it made a small part of her die inside, it was boring and expected.

She lit a cigarette as she cracked eggs into a pan and whisked them around.

"Aunt Anna?" A small voice asked from behind her.

"Yes Tobias?" She responded without looking.

"Can I help you with breakfast?" He asked again.

"Sure pull a chair up." She smiled as he totes over one of the lighter chairs and climbed up to stand on it. "Here you can hold my cigarette." Toby was so careful as he grasped the end of her smoke while she transferred the cooked eggs into a plate and started making bacon. But Anna could see the curiosity in his eyes; he wanted to try it. "Here kid, take a puff, you never know you might enjoy it." She shrugged as she watched him copy her moves.

Almost instantly he was coughing and spluttering as smoke exited his mouth. Anna laughed as she took the cigarette back.

"Now I never want to see you smoking again. They kill you." Anna waved the thing around in her hand before taking another puff.

"Why are you doing it then? Don't they kill you?" He asked with a crooked face.

"Nah, they can't kill Aunt Anna. Nothing can kill me. Go spy on those guys up there with your brother." She shooed him off the counter. "Toby," she called as he walked away. "You know you and your brother, you are my favorite little men."

"Aunt Anna! We are your only little men!" Tobias exclaimed as he ran away.

"Very true." She muttered. "Very true."

Breakfast was ready and Sam and Dean still hadn't made it downstairs. The boys were becoming impatient as they watched the older brothers sleep.

"Aunt Anna! Are they dead?" Michael called down the stairs.

"No, if you really want them up you can always poke them." Anna suggested as a joke, forgetting that kids don't learn sarcasm until they are older. The next thing she heard was screams and Toby's cry. "Jesus Christ!" She muttered as she rushed up the stars three at a time. "Oh fuck." She whispered as she took in he scene.


	11. Chapter 11

Dean looked very angry, Sam looked like he wasn't sure where he was. Toby had scrunched himself into a ball next to the closet.

"What's going on?" Sam asked as he looked at both of the small boys.

Michael stood in front of his brother with both his fists raised.

"Don't hurt my brother!" He yelled. "Aunt Anna! It's all my fault I told him to poke him because you said it was okay. I'm sorry." Michael rushed forward and tossed his face in Anna's side.

"Hey, kid it's okay." Anna looked at Dean who was looking slightly apologetic. "It's okay. No one is going to hurt your brother, promise. Dean, Sam, these are my nephews Michael, the protector, and Tobias, the brave." Anna smirked. "Guys, these are my friends Sam and Dean, they are brothers just like you." Dean scowled a little but it quickly softened as he saw Michael wasn't about to back down to him.

"You watching out for your little brother?" He asked as he wiped the sleep out of his eyes with the edge of his shirt.

"Yes, sir." Michael had let his guard down a little but his body was rigid.

"Good, little brothers always need protecting." He stood up and slipped walked to the small bathroom. Anna saw Sam roll his eyes.

"Okay guys I need your help with something." She nodded with wide eyes. " How good are you at hunting monsters?"

"The best." Michael nodded and Anna nodded with a repressed laugh.

"Good, because while I was making breakfast I heard something. There is something in the basement, I heard it snatches up little children that don't listen to their extremely cool aunt and there is only one way to get rid of it."

"How's that?" Michael asked with rapt attention.

"Uh." she paused not really expecting him to want to know. "The secret is, um, oregano? Yeah, you corner it with a wooden spoon and once you find it you have to pour oregano in its eyes. It has three, and it's green with scales, and purple spikes for feet."

"What's oregano?"

"I can show you and I'll get you a couple spoons and you can go fight it with Toby." Anna picked Toby up and held her hand out to Michael.

"But what if it takes us?" Toby asked.

"You listen to me, right?" She checked.

"Yeah."

"Well then he can't get you." She walked down the stairs and grabbed the oregano off the shelf. Anna deposited both of them off in front of the door to the basement. "Have fun scaring monsters." She let out a huff of breath from carrying Toby. She turned around and jumped a foot back. Dean was starring at her with a look of confusion. "Jesus! You are just like your brother! Make some noise while you walk!" She groused as she turned back to the food she had prepared.

"Salt." He stated as he sat down and started loading his plate.

"I'm sorry?"

"It's not oregano, it's salt and it doesn't work on all monsters just ghosts and demons." He took a large bite of pancakes. "And a wooden spoon won't help jack shit. Oh and most monsters don't care if you listen to your Aunt, they still want to kill you, hell sometimes they want to eat you."

"Yeah, because I was really going to tell my eight year old nephew and is four year old little brother that. The oregano monster works just fine thank you." Anna rolled her eyes and smiled at Sam as he walked into the kitchen.

"We are going to head to the police station today to see what we can learn from the crime scene. I know you said you wanted to be a part of this but do you think this is a good one to start with?" Sam asked between sips of coffee.

"No, but I need to do something. I don't have to be there but I am going to help and I am going to kill whatever did this." Anna looked down before glaring at them. "It killed my sisters. It killed my family, they were innocent, those boys in there, they're short a mom and that was the one thing we always promised each other. Our children would never become like us, they would always have a mother."

"Okay." Dean nodded and Anna raised an eyebrow at him.

"Really? Okay, that's it?"

"Yeah, I get it. You need to kill it so let's go find out what we're dealing with." He looked dead serious and Anna stared at him.

It took her a second but before she could analyze it anymore she leaned over and kissed him. He was being nice in a way that didn't make her think he was looking for anything in return. He wasn't smug or condescending, he somehow understood exactly what she was thinking.

"Thank you." She whispered still close to him so their lips almost touched again.

"Before we can go I need to get a new shirt, mine still has blood on it." Dean returned to the group conversation as if nothing happened.

"Go get it, I said I would clean it for you and I will." Anna spoke with half her mouth as she tried to balance a cigarette in between her lips.

Sam and Dean were eating and talking about what it might be based on the information they had. Occasionally they would ask Anna what she had seen, specific details that required her to think very hard about things she wasn't focused on. She was leaning over Dean's white shirt with a toothbrush coated in lemon juice and baking soda trying to get the red stain that Anna wasn't entirely convinced wasn't marinara sauce. They asked her questions like if she remembered the smell of sulfur or if she had seen anything missing from her sister's body.

"You mean aside from her skin!" Anna whispered concerned that the boys would hear. "No, nothing out of the ordinary." She turned back to her work before she picked her head up again. "Out of curiosity, what would smell like sulfur?"

"A demon leaves traces of sulfur when they possess someone." Sam explained.

"Like the Devil? You think the Devil killed my sisters? No offence to my sisters, but isn't that a little below his pay grade?" Anna squinted at the stain because it gave her something to focus on as a coping mechanism.

"Not the Devil. More like an evil son of a bitch from hell. Sometimes they just like to see death." Dean shrugged, business as usual.

"Comforting." Anna nodded. "Well I don't remember any sulfur."

"Could be a witch?" Sam offered and Anna heard Dean groan.

"How would you go about killing a demon?" Anna asked still focused on demons, not entirely sure if she didn't remember sulfur and each time she replayed the scene in her head she remembered it a little differently.

"You can't really kill them but you can send their asses back to hell with an exorcism." Dean shrugged; it was starting to get annoying how calm he was about all of it.

"Like with Latin and holy water?"

"You know that might be the one thing the movies got right." Dean laughed. "Might be a ghost? It would explain why no one saw anything."

"Or it could be that living in a dorm and everyone looks the other way with suspicious activity." Anna shrugged. "Okay, shirt's done. Just give it a minute to dry." She finally looked up.

"Aren't you going to eat anything?" Dean looked down at her nibbled on toast.

"I can't keep anything down right now, besides I already smoked my breakfast." She shook her head slowly.

"Those things will kill you." Dean looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah?" She matched his glare. "Hey, do you think my sister smoked?" Dean opened his mouth but Anna got to him first. "You could die tomorrow Dean, we all could. And if we do I'm going to go out guns blazing, you are going to pitter out like the sad little thing you are, never having experienced all life has to offer."

"I experience everything life has to offer." Dean scoffed.

"I doubt that." She purposely blew smoke in his face. "Don't worry Dean I'm not going to pressure you into anything." She laughed. "But you should at least live with the devil once before you start judging anyone else." She stood up and leaned on the doorframe leading to the basement. "Boys! Stop fighting monsters and bring the oregano back up." She yelled.

Five minutes later Michael and Tobias trudged up the stairs and Toby was shaking his puff of red hair and little green flakes falling out. Michael was holding the empty oregano container.

"Uh Aunt Anna, there was a mistake." Michael started to explain as he handed her the bottle. "Toby was the monster and I got him but oregano doesn't work."

Anna stared at him before looking at Toby.

"Mike, you are supposed to protect your brother from the monsters not turn him into one. Be good to your brother, he's the only one you get."

"I know but -"

"No buts! Apologize to your brother right now."

"Aunt Anna, my hair smells like a pizza." Tobias interrupted with a grin.

"And you pizza boy, don't let your brother pour oregano on your head!" She scolded as she started ruffling his hair, shaking the flakes loose. "What am I going to do with you two? When your father gets here -"

"No, no! Don't tell dad!" Michael waved his hands in front of his face. "I'm sorry you're so slow at playing monsters, Toby. Next time I'll only get you when no one else is home."

"Yep that's healthy." Anna muttered as Dean laughed and raised his hand for a high five. "Don't encourage his behavior." She forced his hand down before Michael could reach up and slap it. "Jesus, is it really three already?" She asked, looking at Dean's watch as she held his wrist. "Your dad is supposed to get home at five and then he has something he needs to tell you."

She didn't want to tell them, she selfishly wanted them to always remember her with happiness not resentment. She still resented the nurse that told her that her mother was dead. She really didn't mind if they resented their father, that seemed normal, but they couldn't resent her. She would never be able to live with herself if they did.

"Okay! Everyone in the car in five minutes or I'm leaving you up here for the boogie man to get you." Anna jolted herself out of her thoughts.

"Yeah Toby! You better hurry, he eats little babies!" Michael chased him into the living room.

"Mom said you weren't allowed to call me that anymore!" Toby called. "I'm not a baby."

Anna turned back to the table.

"This is the whole reason I left." She complained as she picked up the empty plates. "I hate taking care of all of this." She motioned to the kitchen. "I wanted to get rid of this life, these stupid curtains, all these dishes, damnit!" She slapped the rag down onto the counter and shut her eyes just wishing this were all some really bad dream that she could some how wake up from. "I should have just left my jacket in the room."

"What?"

"The only reason I started freaking out about Cassie in the first place was because I found these in your room." She grabbed the drawings out of her back pocket and slammed them on the table. "One of you drew my sisters dorm, or a room that looked like her dorm or whatever, and besides me being furious that one of you went through my things and, I don't know, went all rain man on me I started worrying. So I called and I called and I pestered and I forced Nikki over there and that's why she's dead. So one of you is going to tell me who exactly drew this, why they did it, and then both of you are going to help me get my nephews to their father's house so that he can tell them that their mother is dead!" She shouted the last line before she heard a thud and turned around.

Michael was standing there looing like he was going to cry, the large piece of wood he had picked up to look at dropped to the ground forgotten.

"Mommy's dead?" He whispered before running away.

"Oh fuck." Anna whispered. "Fuck, baby!" She called after him as she ran to the spot under the stairs and curled his feet into his body, hugging his legs close to his chest.

Before she could reach him Toby go their first and Anna could hear Michael's screams.

"Mom's dead Toby! She's dead and I never want to talk to you ever again! I hate you!" He screamed.

"Michael! Hey, kiddo. I'm sorry that's how you found out about that. I should have talked to you. I know it's so hard to hear. I lost my mom when I was little too but you know what made me strong?" Michael shook his head while Anna grabbed Toby's waist and hugged him into her side. "I had my sisters, and you have your brother. With him, you will always have someone to protect you. It's you and him against the world now. You guys, my little men, some day you are going to take on the world together and if you ever need anything I'll be there."

"She's dead, really dead?"

"Yeah." Anna felt more tears prick at her eyes. "Yeah, I'm sorry."

"I said I hated her." Michael whispered.

"Oh, sweetheart, she knew you loved her. And she loved you; she loved both of you so much. And I love you." With every word she spoke her resolve grew; she knew she needed to find whatever did this. "Let's get you two back home, see your dad, because you know who loves you even more than me? Your dad! He's bonkers over you. You are never alone, I promise you are never alone."

Anna loaded the kids into Dean's car before she straightened up.

"How did you know to say any of that?" Dean asked. He looked incredibly uncomfortable in his suit and tie.

"Because when I lost my mom no one was there to say any of that. It was what I needed to hear when I was little. Your tie is a little crooked." She stepped forward and fixed it without looking at him. "So you guys are going to go in there and say that you work for the FBI or whatever and they are just going to believe you?"

"Yes. Why wouldn't they?"

"Because if I had an FBI agent come to my door looking like you I would definitely question it."

"Why's that."

"Because, when you want to, you look good enough to eat." Anna pulled him closer. She kissed him again and somewhere in the back of her brain she knew it was fatigue pushing her to act like this, to overcompensate for the emotions she wasn't letting herself feel. "So when you are done with playing dress up, how about I undress you." Her hand ran up the lapel of his jacket.

"I might let you do that." Dean smirked.

"Oh yeah." Anna nodded her head in a sarcastic manner. "You promise?"

"Ah, I can't make any promises."

"Oh no? Well we will just have to see about that." Anna turned back around and was about to climb in the back with her nephews.

"What if I let you take my car?" Dean called to her back causing her to spin around to face him, he was holding up the keys around is finger. The ring of tape labeled with 'hot chick' caught her eyes.

"Why would you let me do that?" She narrowed her eyes as she walked towards him.

"Because you have the kids and the Camino doesn't have a backseat and I'm in a generous mood." He cocked his head to the side. "It's a one time offer, take it or get them out of my car. Can't take kids to the police station."

"You just wanna ride my baby again." She smirked as she grabbed the key of his finger. "You liked it and you wanna try it again. Like a junkie." She nodded slowly as she handed him her own keys. "This is a one time deal, I'm not going to be your dealer. I'll see you back here tonight." Anna turned to Sam and fixed his collar. "I know it's technically your day to play Dad but be safe okay?"

"It's a police station not a warzone."

"Have you ever dealt with redneck policemen? It's pretty much the same thing." She chuckled.

Hey when you get back you should catch a nap or eat something. I know things are stressful but it's not going to help if you try and kill yourself over this." Sam nudged her a little.

"I'll sleep when I'm tired and I'll eat when I'm hungry. Don't worry about me; I haven't had a good night's sleep in over ten years. I'll be okay. I'll probably pick up a burger or something on my way home." She lied knowing that she probably wouldn't get anything, anything she even thought about eating made her want to be sick.

"Okay. I guess I'll see you tonight then." He looked like he wanted to say more but didn't as he turned away.

"Sam, you know you protect your brother just as much as he protects you. It's you and him against the world." She looked at Dean as he made himself comfortable in her car. "I didn't say those things to my nephews because they make good greeting cards. Please be careful and don't die, your brother needs you."

"The anniversary of my mother's death is in a couple weeks." That wasn't what he had wanted to tell her she could sense that he was keeping something from her.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean I can't really remember her or anything but still." He shrugged.

"No, it's a big deal. Do you usually do something for her anniversary?"

"No I haven't thought about her in years really but this one I can't get out of my mind." Sam walked closer to her. "I, um, I wanted to tell you it was -" He was cut off by Dean sounding the horn in her car.

"Jesus, Dean! Three seconds!" She yelled. "Sorry, you were saying something?"

"Nothing, it's nothing." He waved his hand to forget it and walked away.

"Okay, I'll be here if you want to tell me what exactly nothing is." Anna rolled her eyes and got in the car.

They drove silently to their house and Anna saw Michael's silver Maserati in the driveway.

"Okay boys. Here's the deal, we are going to go in there with strength. Your Daddy is going to need you, both of you to be strong. I'll be there with you the whole time." She helped them out of the car and into the house. "Mike! I saw the car outside, it's Anna, and I have the boys." She called before she entered the living room. Michael Senior was sitting on the couch with an open bottle of Johnny Walker and a glass next to him. His eyes were rimmed with red, he had been crying. "Oh Mike." She whispered. "Go give your father a hug." She nudged the boys and for a second they wouldn't budge. "He needs you." Slowly they moved closer to their father and he scooped them into a bone-crushing hug. Anna watched the scene and frowned to keep a strong face.

"Anna I need to talk to you for a minute." He declared with a pointed look.

"Yeah, okay." She nodded and walked with him over to his office, waiting for him to shut the door.

"Thank you for taking care of my kids. When the police called, I tried to get on the earliest flight back but there weren't any flights out of Minneapolis and renting a car was going to take even longer. I'm just so thankful you were here."

"It's okay. I'm sorry." Anna ran her hand over his shoulder.

"She was a good woman. I'm sorry about your sisters, it must have been awful finding them. I'm sorry about Cassandra, I loved her she was my sister too."

"It's, it's okay you know." Anna shrugged; the strength she thought she had was waning. "She was an amazing sister and she had so much love in her and if there is a God up there I know she's with him now." Tears ran down her cheek and she felt Mike push them away with his thumb.

She wasn't sure when he had moved so close to her but as soon as she noticed she took a step back.

"It's okay. I know Nicole was having an affair with Tobias' teacher. I accepted her and I loved her anyways." He took another step towards her.

"Nikki loved her family, she loved you, and she wouldn't betray you." Anna shook her head and took another step back accidentally knocking into his desk.

"Really? Then why did she have three parent teacher conferences in the past week?"

"I don't know but there has to be some other explanation she wouldn't have done that to you and I can't do that to her. I can't do this." She pushed at her hands to move him away as she wiggled to the side. "I'm sorry for your loss, I will miss Nicole every day I live." Anna rushed out to the house after a quick goodbye to Toby and Michael.

She drove back to the cabin and waited. Her hands shook as she looked for things to do. She made the beds, she showered and changed clothes, she washed every dish in the house twice, she put Sam and Dean's clothes in the wash and picked out the ones with blood stains to wash by hand, she had almost forced herself into the back bedroom, her hand was on the nob when she heard the front door open.

"Oh thank God y'all are back." She muttered, rushing towards the living room. "I was about to go stir crazy just sitting here, next time I go with you I don't care how you have to do it but you take me with you. I, I mean I know I don't know anything about this I know you guys are basically taking me along so that I don't kill anyone on accident, but I just need to do something more than Suzy homemaker." She pulled Sam into a hug as she looked at Dean. "What did you find out?"

"It's not good." Dean shook his head softly as he loosened his tie.

"Is it ever?"


	12. Chapter 12

"Your sister, Cassandra, she had three vertical slices on each wrist, deep and they didn't miss. The coroner thinks that she must have had a history of slicing her wrists to know where to cut." Dean looked uncomfortable but he handed her the photocopied file they had taken.

Anna sucked her breath when she saw the pictures of Cassandra's wrist.

"Anna if this is too much for you right now we can deal with this, you don't have to look at this." Sam comforted.

"No, it's fine." She shook her head "Cassie loved the theatre, she had a flare for acting the rest of us seriously lacked, she could lie her ass off in a tight situation but she wasn't depressed. She never cut her wrists, she had just gotten a scholarship to some summer acting thing, she was seeing this guy, she was happy, she wasn't about to kill herself." Anna threw the pictures back at Dean as she looked at them.

"Her roommate says there was a rumour the guy she was seeing was her maths professor." Dean wasn't pulling any punches as he laid the information out for her.

Anna snorted a little.

"No. She gave me his name it was Gregory something. She told me his last name, something Russian. She said something about him being FOB, he wasn't her maths professor." Anna laughed a little without really feeling the funny.

"FOB?" Sam wrinkled his features to show his confusion.

"Fresh off the boat, just hailed from Mother Russia, accent so thick you can't actually make out what he's saying half the time."

"Gregory Yeltsin?" Dean showed her a picture of a slim man in his mid thirties. His shoulder length dark brown hair have him a mysterious look and Anna couldn't deny that he was attractive. He was exactly Cassandra's type.

"Oh shit, Cass, what have you gotten yourself into." She whispered as she looked at the picture a little longer. "Yeah, okay, that's got to be him. Cassie probably looked at his hair and his tanned skin for about three seconds before she fell for him." Anna rolled her eyes and pushed the picture away.

"Your sister was having an affair with a married man." Dean nodded.

"For the last time! Nicole wasn't having an affair! I know it's suspicious that she and Toby's teacher had so many parent teacher conferences but I'm sure there was a totally valid reason." Anna stood up. "Want a beer, I need a beer, I actually need something stronger than a beer." She wiped her hands on her pants as she walked to the kitchen.

"Not, that sister. Cassandra, the math professor was married." Dean threw another picture on the table and Anna walked back with a bottle of whisky. "His wife is a gypsy." Dean looked perturbed.

"A gypsy? I don't think that's the politically correct term." Anna drank from the bottle as the information became too much. "What does this have to do with anything of anything?"

"Well you have heard about gypsy curses, women that visit them to catch cheating husbands." Sam looked over at her from his place on the couch.

"You think a Gypsy cursed my sisters? Say for a second I believed you, how would she even know about Nicole? No, you know what I need a brake, I can't deal with this right now. Does anyone want a sandwich or something?"

"I'm going to look this over a little more." Dean looked down at the files of collected evidence.

"I'll give you a hand in the kitchen." Sam muttered as he followed after her.

They worked quietly while Anna took occasional sips from her bottle in between slicing tomatoes.

"Ah shit!" Anna hissed as the knife slipped cut a slice into her finger. Holding a towel over the blood she walked over to the sink.

"You okay?" Sam walked over and pulled the towel off.

"Yeah, I just wasn't focusing. I'm fine, really." Sam tried to help her wash off her finger but ended up splashing a large about of water on both of them. "Oh God! Sam!" Anna laughed as she tried to hold her finger up and wipe the water off of her shirt. "Nice." She looked up, expecting him to be laughing with her. He wasn't instead he looked very guilty. "What's wrong?"

"Anna, you remember this morning when you were asking about the drawings you found?" Sam asked slowly, without looking at her.

"Oh, Sam, don't worry about it. I was really mad this morning but you guys have helped me so much I really don't see any point in worrying about it." She waved her hand. "If Cassie and Nikki were really killed because they were having a affairs there was nothing I could have done to stop it. I tried to police my sisters love life when we were younger and it didn't work then, it wouldn't have worked now."

"No, I drew those pictures but I swear I didn't go through your things." Sam looked away as he whispered it so that she could barely hear it.

"Well then it must have just looked like Cassie's room. If you say you didn't go through my stuff I guess I believe you." Anna tried to put her thoughts together and was suddenly regretting the liquor.

"No, I had a dream about a girl that looked like you, I saw her die but I thought it was just a nightmare. And then you showed me that picture of you and your sister and I realised it wasn't just a dream."

Anna looked at him and then the floor.

"When?"

"What?"

"When did you have the dream?"

"Uh the day I met you and then the next night the same thing." Sam whispered.

"So you saw someone that looked like me die in your dream and you didn't think that was an important piece of information?" Anna matched his tone. "What are you trying to tell me Sam, are you psychic?"

"We had just met you I didn't think it meant anything. I don't know what's happening but in my dream, she died the same way." Sam looked over at the hallway.

"Does Dean know?" She asked knowing the answer to the question.

"No, I'm going to tell him but I knew you were really worried about it and I wanted to tell you first."

"Bullshit! You wanted to test my reaction. This is just a dress rehearsal for when you tell Dean. Don't worry I'll keep your secret, but you should tell him soon. Did you - did you see who did it?"

"No, I swear." He looked earnest enough and Anna nodded.

"My finger stopped bleeding, you can let go now." She made a pointed glance at her hand that Sam had in a death grip. Sam nodded and Anna took a step to the side to get away from him. "You can finish the sandwiches, I lost my appetite." She walked away from him.

She understood that he didn't keep his secrets maliciously and she believed that he really didn't know what was happening. But irrationally she felt all of the anger she had been feeling for the thing that did it transfer to Sam. Suddenly the walls felt like they were closing in on her. She needed to get out of there. She walked as calmly to the closet. Inside were several hunting rifles all locked together with thick wire. She quickly found the key and unlocked them. She picked out her favourite and grabbed a box of shells.

"I'll be back." She yelled.

Hunting wasn't something she necessarily enjoyed, but she was pretty good at it. There was something to be said about the serenity of it all. You can't talk while you stalk your hunt. Planning and the anticipation of it all, that gave her a thrill but the actual killing she wasn't so good with. Her father had taught her that if she killed it she would have to be able to dress it. It was all about responsibility for your kills and while she could appreciate it on a moral level the actual doing it part was still a little hard for her. But she needed some sort of a release. She needed to feel powerful over this one thing in her life, everything she thought she knew was being thrown out the window and she was trying to hold it together. She had been walking around the woods for about twenty minutes when she saw him. A beautiful buck, he was walking along so peacefully, he didn't even see her as she lined up her shot.

Anna's mind was so on the hunt that when she heard the twigs snap behind her and caused the deer to bolt she spun on casters with her gun still raised. Dean stood about twenty feet back with his hands raised.

"Damnit I could have killed you! Don't sneak up on people with loaded guns!" She scolded as she lowered the shotgun. "Do you have some sort of a death wish?" Her heart was beating fast a she looked at him. "You ruined a perfectly good shot."

"You're dunker than a skunk, you couldn't hit me if you tried." Dean smirked.

Anna frowned, for some reason these guys were convinced she couldn't take care of herself; guns were probably the one thing she was actually good at. She could sharp shoot at over five hundred yards, she could twirl a loaded gun over her head and catch it again, and she could look a man she loved in the face and kill him.

"Stop acting like I'm some sort of damsel in distress." She shook her head. As she looked up at him again she threw the gun in the air so that it spun around before she caught it with one hand and pointed it up into the air. "It was cute for a minute but its novelty has worn off. I'm probably better with a gun than you are so coddling me is just going to make me mad."

"Duly noted." He nodded as he walked closer. "You wanna tell me why you walked off on us in there?"

"Have you talked to Sam? Because he's going to need to talk to you." Anna leaned against a tree and set the shotgun down next to her.

"What did he open up his fat trap and tell you." Dean asked with a smirk as he leaned against the same tree.

Anna laughed as she pulled a cigarette out of her pocket along with her lighter. She saw Dean grimace but he didn't say anything. Anna assumed he was giving her a break because of her sisters, or maybe he could just read her that if he tried to take this from her she would snap his fingers off.

"Nothing Dean, he said nothing. Of the people you have ever told this to, on a scale, how have I handled all of this?" She asked looking up at the leaves that were in the process of falling.

"Better than most, almost creepy the way you are so cool with everything." Dean nocked her free hand with his from inside his jacket pocket. "Last girl thought I was making it all up to break up with her."

"Well I'm honoured." Anna stated with a breath of a laugh. "Do you think it's really a gypsy doing this? I mean if this was a revenge thing, maybe it's just me being vindictive but I would want everyone to know what she did. I wouldn't want people to think it was a suicide. She would be strung to the rafters by her toes and ripped to shreds, not cut a couple times nice and tidy like. And that doesn't account for Nicole. Where the hell is her skin?"

"The, um, the police said it looked like she picked the skin off." Dean met her gaze for a minute. Anna's eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"Like with her fingers?" She whispered.

"Yeah, they found pieces of her skin under her nails."

"Oh God." Anna muttered. "So what your saying is that everyone thinks they did this to themselves? That one of my sisters picked her own skin off and the other just sat by and watched her before she slit her wrists open? It would have taken hours; people would have heard the screams. That can't be what happened!"

"We know. We don't think that's what happened but that is what they have come up with." Dean moved towards her and she could feel his hands wrap around her waist.

"I keep saying thank you because I don't know what else to say." Anna whispered. "Thank you."

"Stop thanking me we haven't even done anything yet." He laughed.

"Well, I guess if you really don't want me to thank you," She wrapped her arms around his neck and her leg hitched up around his hip. "Then we should get back to work because I'm either going to fuck you or I'm going to fucking kill whatever killed my sisters."

"Oh I see how it is, you are just using me for my body." He smirked.

"Yeah, pretty much. So, which are you going to pick?" Anna let her lips run across his as she spoke.

Dean's choice wasn't really a surprise; there was minimal talking and a few too many twigs poking at her ass but she really didn't care. She knew she needed this more than she was letting on. She had so many emotions swimming inside of her; everything from sorrow to abhorrence filled her. But there were other emotions too not just the obvious; she was confused and worried, passionate and eager. But above all else she felt a giant wave of hunger crash over her, not for food; craving food almost seemed petty and almost trivial after everything she had seen. Instead she hungered for the physicality of it all, of life, of humanity, she was alive and she realised that was the most important.

"We have to get back." Anna pressed a kiss into his chest. "That was good though, I'll make sure to get back to you about round two soon." She got up and found her shorts and underwear resting on the ground next to them. Her shirt was torn into three parts and the largest part was hanging on a tree branch. "You know, I don't know if you noticed but I don't have a whole lot of clothes." She held up the three pieces of cloth. "I don't actually find your destruction of my things that much of a turn on."

"Who says I do it for you?" Dean raised an eyebrow as he watched her dress.

"What a gentleman." She rolled her eyes as she picked up the shotgun again and walked in the direction of the house. She was aware she looked pretty ridiculous in her bra and shorts carting around a gun bigger than her arm but she figured the area was isolated enough that no one would see her.

"Can you tell me why he bit you?" Dean asked as he jogged slightly to join her.

"Who?" She asked knowing whom he was referring to.

"The guy you were with, Ronny or Johnny or whatever."

"Robbie, didn't need a reason to do anything but I guess you could say it was because he thought he could claim me. It was kind of a brand for him." She snorted. "It got infected three days later and I had to the hospital."

"And the doctors didn't say anything?"

"What would they do? At that point I thought he loved me and I loved him, I would have taken a bullet for him I certainly wasn't going to go to the cops." Anna sneered a little as she opened the front door. "He was really good at making me feel like I needed him, but he was even better at making me feel like he needed me." She locked the gun back up without looking at him. Anna walked into the bathroom and slammed the door shut, she was done talking.

Anna sat on the cold tile floor for a few minutes before she realised all she had done was trap herself in a room without a shirt and no where closer to finding out about what killed her sister.

"Get your life together, Anna!" She shouted at herself as she looked in the mirror at her pristine face framed by a lion's mane of snarled red hair. Leaves and twigs had buried themselves in the mess. She needed another shower.


	13. Chapter 13

"This is the dumbest thing I have ever done!" Anna complained as she whipped her still dripping hair into a sloppy bun. Sam was pulling her out onto the porch. "Seriously you guys are wasting your time looking for a little show, while my sisters' killer is still out there. Oh God, really?" She asked as she saw the set up they had created. "I told you I was good with a gun why are you making me show you?" Her hand ran over the butt of a heavy shotgun. There were three different types of guns sitting there waiting for her. On the far end of the porch, maybe fifty feet away were three glass bottles she recognised as the same brand of beer she had in the fridge. "If you drank all my beer just to set this up I'm not going to be pointing these guns at the bottles." She groused as she picked up the rifle and situated it against her shoulder trying to get used to the feel of it in her hands.

"Just try and do this, if we are going to take you with us we need to know that we can take you with us and not be a burden." Dean looked at the bottles as he said it.

"Fuck you, Winchester." She snorted as she lowered the gun and loaded it. "What is this stuff?" She looked at the shell she had picked up and stuck her finger in it pulling out a small amount and tentatively licking it. "Salt?"

"Rock salt, stuff is like acid to a ghost." Dean explained as he came up behind her and tried to help her line up the shot. She let him until she felt his hand travel too far south.

"Dean, if you want a piece of this ass at least wait until I can prove myself to your brother." She looked over at him with a glare before returning her look at her target. She saw him back away from her with his hands raised.

"Now, I know you have been drinking so we won't hold it against you if you miss once or twice." Sam stated. "Just try and hit the bottles."

"Twenty for each one I hit." She nodded before she looked over at them. "Come on if I'm even half as drunk as you think I am you've got nothing to loose." She reasoned. "Besides these aren't my guns I don't know how they shoot." She put down the rifle and picked up the semi-automatic, weighing it in her hand as she spoke.

"So why bet on it?" Dean's eyes narrowed.

"Makes me keep trying." She shrugged.

"Fine." Dean held out his hand and they shook.

Anna didn't speak anymore as she picked up the rifle and lined up her shot again, this time when she pulled the trigger it was with confidence and heard the tale tail sound of glass shattering as she watched the bottle explode. She pulled the trigger again and again another brown bottle shattered. She loaded the gun again and smashed the third bottle.

"Line them up again." She demanded as she lowered the rifle. It took a minute but Sam finally moved over to line up the next set of bottles. "I'm keeping track, what is that sixty?" She asked with a smirk as she picked up the handgun. Again she hit all three on the first shot. "That's one hundred a twenty." She motioned at Sam to line up another row of targets as she looked at the final gun. "A sawed off, really?"

"You can always take a handicap." Dean smirked, knowing full well that she couldn't make the shot. No one could, it was an impossible shot from the distance she was standing at.

"Dean you can't do this, why should I be able to, it's not about skill it's about bringing a knife to a gun fight so to speak." Anna placed the thing back on the table. "Besides if I take your stupid handicap I'll end up with glass in my eye."

"Fine if you don't want to use that you can use these." Dean laid out a set of knives.

"You want me to throw knives at the situation?" Anna raised an eyebrow.

"Sure, even if you miss they will just hit the wall, no harm no foul." He smirked at her thinking he had won. "You have thrown a knife before right?" He asked innocently.

"Sure I have." It almost wasn't a lie, she had thrown a knife once but it was really different than this. It had been a plastic butter knife and she threw it at her sister over Fourth of July weekend a few years ago, she had been aiming for an apple on her sister's head and ended up pelting it at her forehead. She squared her shoulders as she faced Dean and picked up a knife and focused back on the target. Suddenly the bottle seemed about thirty extra feet away. She was trying to hit something impossibly small with something close to uncontrollable. "No problem." She whispered, trying to rouse some confidence in herself.

"When ever your ready." Dean was openly mocking her at this point.

"I would think you would know, don't piss off someone holding the pointy things." She whispered without looking at him. Anna decided that the best way to approach it was to try and throw it so that the widest part hit the glass.

Deep breath, she lifted her hand and let the blade fly, or at least that was what she intended on doing. Instead the knife sort of puttered halfway and clattered to the floor. It lay there unimpressively, teasing her. She heard Dean trying to smother his laugh and she rounded on him.

"I want to see you try and do that!" She growled, her eyes narrowed to slits as she scowled at him. "I don't think you could."

Dean wordlessly took one of the knives she was holding and threw it across the porch. It came in on an angle and knocked all three bottles off at once.

"Show off." Anna grumbled. "You still owe me sixty bucks."

"You said you wanted to be better than me. Better start practicing." Dean walked away. "Because that was pathetic."

Anna looked at the smashed glass for a second before she looked at Sam's guilty expression. He looked like he was about to say something, he opened his mouth but she really didn't want to hear it. She held up a finger with a warning look before she walked after him. She was embarrassed, she had screwed up and she had done it publically. Her pride was almost everything to her, she didn't have a lot of it but what she did have she needed to protect. Anna walked into the house and saw Dean taking another beer out of the refrigerator. She walked up to him and stole the bottle out of his hand. Taking the first sip she smiled at him before she handed it back.

"That was impressive, with the knife and everything. Tell me how did you do it?" She stepped a little closer and her hands ran down the zipper of his jacket as her eyes moved down to his waist and back up.

"Practice, skill, and a fair bit of luck." Dean smirked obviously thinking he had impressed her.

"Yeah?" She smiled as she pulled his face closer to hers. "I'll tell you what, you ever want to do that thing we talked about in the woods? Don't talk to me like that again, ever. Don't embarrass me, that's the end of it" She pushed him back slightly and walked into the living room with all the papers about her sisters. "Okay Cassie, talk to me." She whispered as she pored over the papers.

She spent hours looking over each piece of paper; interviews the police had conducted with roommates and friends, pictures of the blood and the room and the handprint one of them had left on the window. The sun had set sometime while she looked through the papers and at some level she noticed Sam leave and come back but she didn't look up. Something cold brushed against her arm as she reached for another file.

Slowly she forced her head up to see what was so cold and wet. Someone had brought a soda in a large paper cup along with a wrapped burger. Sam. She smiled a little; he was trying to take care of her. She ignored the food and took the drink. Anna sipped on it for a little before she popped the lid off and filled the empty space with scotch. It was strong and drinking it though a straw probably wasn't a good idea but she kept at it. Searching for something that might not even be there, she was waiting for some sort of clue like it would be spelt out in the blood.

She looked at a picture taken of the narrow space in between the two girls beds when something odd struck her. The small white nightstand seemed just a little off, no more than an inch but still it was noticeable. Anna pulled out the picture she had of Cassie and took in a breath. She noticed now that the nightstand wasn't off centre; it was the picture that was missing. A silver framed picture of the three Fulton sisters and it was missing.

Anna set the older and more recent photo behind and looked over the one of Cassie's wrists. Something struck her as odd as she looked at that photo too. If Cassie's wrists were cut, where were the razors? Slices these deep and clean, if they weren't caused by steel they would have left some sort of residue but the coroners report said nothing about anything in the cuts. Maybe the person that did it had taken it with him.

She finally stood up and looked around. The lights were mostly turned off and as she looked over at the clock she realised why. It was four in the morning; both Sam and Dean had called it a night and went up stairs at some point. Given the time she didn't see a point in going to bed, she would just have to get up in a few hours. Looking at the pictures had only freshened her memory of what she had seen, blood everywhere, her sisters dead, she was the lucky one, but for some reason she felt anything but lucky.

Standing up she realised just how much she had to drink, the world started spinning and she stumbled slightly. She didn't realised how much she was listing to the side until she felt the cool log wall brush against her arm. Anna held her hands out in an attempt to steady herself but she ended up tripping over her own too feet.

"Oh shit!" she gasped as she caught herself just before she nose-dived onto the floor. "Okay, we are laying off the booze from now on." She lied to herself, knowing full well that she would never stop drinking. She tossed the cold burger in the trash and made herself a glass of water.

As she leaned on the counter she looked over at the dining room table. Sam's computer sat there and she thought about it for a minute. She really wasn't very technologically savvy and was more than likely going to break the damn thing but there was so many questions and the answers were all just sitting there. After a moment's debate she decided that if the computer had a password that she couldn't unlock she would give up till morning, if there wasn't she would take it as a sign and start her own search.

She opened the laptop and pressed the power button, the logo flared at her making her squint. She waited a couple seconds before a screen showed up. It was a picture of Sam with a beautiful woman hanging off his arm. The look she was giving him and the one he returned to her was so passionate, so trusting and happy. Anna didn't think she had ever seen Sam that happy, he always looked like something haunted him, it was a bit of the reason for why she trusted him so quickly. Tortured souls she understood, happy people made her nervous. It didn't ask her for a password and she started searching for anything and everything she could think of.

Suddenly the sun was in her eyes and her head was throbbing. She had spent hours on the computer learning about gypsies and things that before this weekend she would have thought was the stuff of nightmares. But now she didn't sleep and she was hunting for something, anything, to kill and avenge her sister's death. She heard the stairs creaking as someone made their way down. Anna quickly shut the search she was working on and closed the computer; she stood up and started wandering around the kitchen.

Anna looked up when she heard whoever it was enter the kitchen. She smiled in an attempt to cover how bad she knew she looked. Dean stood there rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, it's just you." She frowned and turned away looking for the bacon she knew she had bought.

"Sorry to disappoint." He looked around. "So did you get any sleep?"

"Um, yeah, maybe a few hours." She lied.

"Well you look like crap." He started the coffee pot as he said it.

"Gee, thanks just what every girl wants to hear. Honestly it's a miracle someone hasn't scooped you up yet." Anna rolled her eyes. "So what if I haven't been sleeping, why do you care?" She asked as she took a sip from her cup, which was at that point mostly melted ice and scotch.

"What is that?"

"Soda." Anna lit a cigarette as she whisked the eggs together. "Stop with the judging." She rolled her eyes and turned back to her work. "So I saw something that I wanted to run past you guys." She started talking again when she saw Sam enter the room. "I was looking at the pictures last night and I noticed something was missing. This picture she had of all of us. It wasn't where it was supposed to be. I thought maybe I would go back to the dorm and see if I could find it. They would let me in to collect her things. I mean maybe, I was just thinking, what if the thing that killed them took the picture as a sort of checklist thing. I don't know maybe I'm just way off on all of this."

"No, it's good. We have to go back to the place anyway you should come with us." Sam shared a look with Dean before he spoke up.

"Yeah, I think that would be a great idea." He sounded forced.

"Okay," That was the first piece of good news she'd had in the past couple days. "So um, breakfast, bacon, eggs, and pancakes." She nodded at the food. "Knock yourself out." She took her cup with her as she went to take a shower. The shower was going to rejuvenate her, it was going to take away her tiredness and everything was going to be better. "I am greatly overestimating the power of this shower." She muttered to herself as she ran the water and stepped in.

The water was good on her shoulders and the heat did loosen some of the knots she felt in her neck. But at the end of the day a shower was just some hot water that eventually turned lukewarm. An hour later and a fresh change of clothes she came out of the bathroom as ready to start the day as anyone could expect from her. She grabbed her purse and felt Sam and Dean behind her, the cup still grasped in her hand like a lifeline.

"So, I probably shouldn't be driving." She admitted, looking anywhere but at them. "I mean I'm fine but I shouldn't be driving."

"How much have you had?" Dean asked as he leaned forward and smelt in her cup.

"Okay," Anna nodded as she pulled her hand back. "So it's been a hard couple of days and I'm adjusting. I'm fine, I'll be better when the thing that did this is dead, but I'm fine I just can't drive." Dean moved to take the cup away from her and she pulled back again. "Take this from me and you are going to get real acquainted with just how well I know my way around a knife." She scowled.

"Fine, I'm driving." Dean scowled at her but she couldn't find the will to care.

"Hey, maybe you want to take it easy." Sam suggested softly as he stepped forward.

"Have you talked to your brother yet? Because really the only way you get to try and fix my life is after you've fixed yours." Anna sneered. Somewhere in the back of her mind she realised that her words were unduly harsh and she shouldn't have said them but the liquor and lack of sleep had replaced her verbal filter. "Now I have to go pack up my dead sister's things so, excuse me." She spun on her heel and walked away from him.

Anna made herself comfortable in the back and had just pulled out a fresh cigarette when Dean turned around to look at her.

"You can't smoke in here. Not in my car, the stink sticks in the upholstery and when I bring people back here they don't like the smell." Dean smirked.

"Yeah because we really want those five dollar hookers to be comfortable." Anna snorted but put the stick away and slipped on a pair of sunglasses. "It's going to be a long day."


	14. Chapter 14

Long didn't begin to cover just what the day was. The police had unsealed Cassandra's room after both deaths were ruled suicides. Anna looked everywhere for the picture but it wasn't in the room. She had worked for hours packing her things in boxes, meticulously labelling and organizing each box for the storage unit her father kept. She sorted trash from treasure for at least three hours while the guys interviewed the people living in the building again. At noon Cassandra's roommate came in and Anna forced herself to be sociable.

"Hey, I'm Anna, you're Joanna right?" She stuck her hand out.

"Oh my gosh it was your sisters!" The girl wept and threw herself into Anna's arm. "Cassie was such an amazing roommate."

"Oh okay." Anna wrapped her hands tentatively around the girls shoulder.

"It must have been so hard for you to see them like that!" The girl looked up. "We were like best friends, we were going to celebrate our twenty second birthdays together. I mean mine was a few months ago but we were going to wait until she got some birthday money and head down to South Beach."

"Oh." Was all Anna could think to say as she got out of the awkward hug.

"I mean we got really close when we both figured out that we lost our parents when we were babies." Joanna kept talking and the amount that she knew about Anna's life was making her uncomfortable.

"Oh. I'm sorry about your mother." She said with a half-hearted smile.

"That's okay she died in a house fire when I was little, I don't really remember her." Joanna shrugged with a smile that didn't really cover the sadness. "I remember what my father told me. She never really exceled at the fidelity part of marriage."

"Hey, Joanna, maybe you can help me, I'm looking for a picture that Cassie had. It was of her and me and my other sister."

"Call my Bobo, everyone does. It had a silver frame?" Joanna asked.

"Okay, Bobo, yeah it had a silver frame. Have you seen it?" She asked again a little confused by the girl's sudden friendliness.

"Yeah, it was right there. I haven't seen it in a couple days. Not since that sketchy cleaning lady stopped by. She could barely speak any English and when I asked her why she was in our room she went straight medicine man on me. Started muttering in some language, it sounded Eastern European."

"Oh." Anna nodded suddenly unable to breath. She saw Sam and Dean standing outside of the door and waved them in. "Bobo, these are my cousins. They are here to help me pack up some of this stuff." She introduced both Sam and Dean. Anna wasn't blind; she could see Joanna lean forward at Dean and shamelessly flirting.

"Well let me give you my number just in case you need help getting into the room again." Joanna told Dean as she grabbed his hand and wrote her number on his palm. "I have class but feel free to call me anytime." She picked up her bag and exited the room.

"So you guys aren't going to believe what she told me." Anna interrupted Dean ogling the girl's ass as she walked away.

"What was it?" Sam at least gave her his attention while Dean was still trying to tear himself away from the co-ed.

"The picture I told you was missing," Anna kept talking as she went through Cassie's desk. "She said some Eastern European lady was in their room a few days ago and the picture has been gone since then. Sound familiar to you?" She opened a bottom drawer and it was empty. "Maybe this is a gypsy thing, maybe she just slept with the wrong guy and Nicole was just collateral damage."

Something was wrong with the desk drawer but she couldn't put her finger on it. Anna looked at the drawer again before it hit her. The space was too small on the inside; there was a false bottom. She really should have noticed it sooner, she had taught Cassie how to hide things from their father. Slowly she pressed on one of the corners and the thin rough plywood kicked up on one side.

"What were you into that you needed to hide it, Cass?" She asked mostly herself as she slid the piece of wood out. Inside was a small bag of weed and a CD. "What the hell?" Anna held up the bag and tossed the CD into her bag. "Classy, Cass, real classy." She shook her head before tossing the grass into her bag as well. "I think this is most of the stuff, we can go if you want." She turned around and saw both Sam and Dean looking around the room. "Or we could wait for the blood hounds to do their job." She rolled her eyes and sat back on the bed watching them.

The way Sam and Dean worked was a bit like a jigsaw puzzle and trying to join in was like cramming the wrong piece into a spot. Anna figured it out very quickly she was the wrong piece to the puzzle as they worked seamlessly. The most impressive part was that it was almost silent. Dean would occasionally make a joke or an observation and sometimes Sam would voice his own theories but mostly they were both silent and methodical in their work. Not that they found something she didn't but she understood the need to double check. If she hadn't done the work herself she would have insisted on it.

They finally walked out of the building with the three boxes she had packed and her bag. She managed to find just enough room to squeeze the boxes in and wedge herself in as well. She was still grumbling about Dean's steadfast refusal to use the boot when she heard her phone ring.

"Hello?" She thanked whatever deity prevented her words from slurring despite her rather pathetic state.

"Anna, this is your father. I wanted to tell you that Cassie and Nicole's funeral will be tomorrow. I have already organized it with Michael and you are expected to be there." The General didn't even give her a chance to process his words before he moved on to the next topic. "You are expected to be here at nine in the morning, we will take a limo to the church and then to the cemetery. You are expected to be there sober and in appropriate clothing. You will then come back to the house and you will interact with your family. CNN will be there and I will not have my family made to be a fool of again."

The line was silent for a minute.

"Can I bring a date?" She finally joked. "You know nothing brings a couple together a death in the family and we have two." The alcohol was bad and she knew the only reason she was saying those things was because she hadn't slept in days and the only meal she'd had was liquid. But there was something really satisfactory about mouthing off to her father, a man she genuinely feared, and knowing he couldn't do anything about it.

"Anna, your sisters are dead. I am sure that they wouldn't appreciate your joking."

"Bullshit. Cassandra would have loved that I brought a date; she would have jumped up and down with joy. I will see you tomorrow." She hung up without waiting for his response.

"So who's the date?" Dean finally asked to the silent car.

"I don't know, the most suitable person I can find at the bar tonight. Just someone to piss my dad of enough without actually giving him a heart attack." She slumped back on the seat. "Hey, Sam what about you?" She asked after a minute. "You free tomorrow?"

"I don't know Anna, this seems like a personal thing." Sam hesitated.

"Oh come on it's going to be a room full of politicians and military guys, this is not about family, this is about a good photo opp. It makes the military seem like they have a heart and it has nothing to do with my sisters. Look, if you don't want to go just say so. Hell, it will give you ample time to talk to your brother."

"No, it's fine. I can go if you want." Anna smirked knowing that he would fold. He was too nice. He wanted to make everyone around him happy and for some reason he really didn't want to talk to his brother.

"Aw, thanks!" She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his cheek. "With that hair he is going to flip." She chuckled dryly.

"Hey why wasn't I on the list?" Dean called sounding like he was more like he wanted to one up his brother than actually go to this funeral.

"Because Sam can smile and look pretty for the cameras. You will have your hand up every girls skirt and won't have time to play defence on my brother in law."

"What's wrong with your brother in law?" Sam asked, maybe he was worried about what he actually agreed to.

"I don't know. Mike has always been great to me, best brother you could ask for and then when I dropped off the kids he tried to get all hot and heavy with me. I mean his wife, my sister, isn't even in the ground yet." She shook her head. "It wasn't like him at all."

"When you saw him, his eyes did they seem different to you? Were they maybe black?" Sam asked

"Nope, no, Mike's eyes are green. They were green the whole time he was trying to cop a feel." Anna looked out the window. She wanted to add that she knew it wasn't a demon this was just someone she trusted being a creep but if she said that she knew they would put it together that she had done her own research.

Maybe it was something left over from Robbie, or it could have just been instinct but she felt the need to make herself seem smaller. Slowly gather information before she was ready to leave them.

Anna dumped the boxes on the couch and started going through them, looking for anything strange but mostly just trying to remind herself exactly what her sister was like. She was vibrant and happy. Cassie kept pictures of everything, she loved to document her life, and anything and everything went into some sort of scrapbook. There were older pictures of the Fulton family, usually their father in his uniform and the three kids around him making the perfect family but there was one. A picture of a much younger Jonathon Fulton, out of uniform and dressed in a soft baby blue button down, his arms were wrapped around a petite red head with a giant full toothed smile. Anna's mother was beautiful and as she looked at the photo she realised so was her father, with his blond hair and blue eyes. He was a big man every bit the six foot seven, two hundred seventy five pounds of him. He always said if he hadn't joined up right after high school he would have gone on to play basketball. Anna smiled at the picture for a second before she moved on.

"Anna, you have to eat something." Sam interrupted her thoughts as he sat next to her on the couch.

"I ate. I ate that burger you brought me. Thanks for that by the way it was good." She lied as she kept looking at her sister's things.

"No, you didn't." He sett the old burger down in front of her and she sighed.

"You dug that out of the trash?" She looked at him with a frown. "Gross, look it's covered in egg goo! Get it off the table." She waved at it. "I told you I would eat when I was hungry. I'm just not hungry."

"Working yourself like this, drinking this much, smoking a pack a day, it's not going to work long term. You want to do this then you can't break down like this with every body you run across."

"It's not any body. It's my sisters, my responsibility. I should never have to burry them, but I do and this is how I'm coping. Now please get that disgusting thing off my table and if you need your shirt cleaned for tomorrow please let me have it before you go to bed. Where's Dean?"

"He went to some bar or something he probably won't be home tonight." Sam admitted looking guilty.

"Cool." Anna nodded. She felt Sam get up to walk away and for a second she was going to let him. "Hey, Sam, I want to show you something." She stood up and took his hand, leading him to the back bedroom. It took every ounce of everything she had to open the door. "Before, everything, this was my bedroom, the bedroom I shared with Robbie."

"Anna what are we doing?" Sam asked softly.

"Don't worry, I'm not putting the moves on you. I'm trying to show you why I can't sleep." She pulled the thick duvet cover off of the bed and threw the pillows on the ground. Grabbing the sheets at one corner she tore them off the bed. The mattress was finally bare and the large brown stain revealed itself. "I cleaned for hours after words. But the blood was set too deep to get out. I was lying right there." She pointed at the relatively clean spot that broke up the blood. "I tasted his blood." Anna saw his look. "It fell into my mouth when he was lying on top of me. I can't sleep in here. I thought I would be okay, it's been almost a year but I'm not over it."

"Anna," he started.

"No what I'm trying to say is I've seen a body. I've seen the body of a loved one, someone I killed and as twisted as our relationship was he was going to be my husband. I can deal with death without going off the rails like this. I know I've taken this a little hard. I'm drinking a little more than I should, and I'm probably not eating enough but just think for a minute. What if it was Dean? What if you saw him with his wrists slit open or his skin all picked off? What would you do?"

They looked at each other a little longer.

"I'd kill him, who ever did it, I'd kill him." Sam nodded as he looked at the mattress again. "I need a drink."

"I drank all the whisky." She muttered.

"Want to go to a bar?"

"Yes." She breathed as she closed her eyes. "Yes, I do."

"Good, I'm driving."

"That's probably a good idea." Anna chuckled darkly. "There is no way I'm doing this thing tomorrow sober." She handed him the keys to her car and made her way out.


	15. Chapter 15

They drove for a little bit before they found a small dive bar and pulled in. Anna pushed herself out of the car and looked over the roof at Sam. There was a row of motorcycles lining half the parking lot.

"You should talk to your brother at some point." Anna told him as she walked into the bar. "Because I'm not very good at the secrets thing. Oh," she took in the scene in front of her. "Hello biker boy toys." She walked over to the bar and caught the man's attention. "Excuse me, can I get two whisky sours and a couple of beers?" She turned back around and handed one of the sets of drinks to Sam. "I know this might not be your scene but Lord help me it sure is mine." She smiled as she looked around at the men. "I think I need to get under one of those guys."

"Come on, not one of these guys." Sam looked around. "Dean, in the middle of the woods and denying that you guys are actually doing it is better than that."

"I don't know what you are talking about." Anna smirked as she leaned against an open table.

"I saw you, the cat is out of the bag." Sam looked over at her.

"Oh, no, we are doing it. Like rabbits, we are definitely going at it. I'm just not pretending we're not doing it." She slung back her drink as she said it.

"Then why is he off chasing some tail and you are around here picking up a biker?" He asked.

"Because, I'm not going to be the girl that tries to tie Dean Winchester down and I'm not at all interested in holding the ropes. He's not really emotionally ready to have a relationship and quite frankly neither am I. Besides we don't like each other." She laughed at the end.

"Are you serious?" He clearly didn't believe her.

"What? We really don't like each other. He constantly undermines me, and he thinks, well I don't actually know what he thinks because he won't tell me a damn thing. He wouldn't lift a finger to help me when the police thought I was a prostitute he had hired and he embarrassed me. I think his jokes are stupid and he thinks they're real clever. He doesn't trust me. What?" She asked again as she saw him smirk into his beer.

"Nothing, it just doesn't sound like you don't like each other." Sam laughed a little.

"Oh and just what does it sound like?" Anna got up and started to move over to one of the pool tables. "Do you play?"

"Yeah a little." Sam followed after her.

"Oh well, I'm not very good. Say, can one of you guys teach me?" She looked over at the three big bikers. "What about you, Razor?" She looked over at his leather vest and saw the badge with his name on it. "Can you show me?"

Razor was definitely the most attractive of the men in the bar. He was shorter than Sam, but that wasn't really saying a whole lot, his short-cropped blond hair made his ears stick out. He was definitely a jarhead. Maybe she was trying to find her father in these men. She couldn't be bothered to think about it a whole lot. Maybe retired given the amount of ink he was sporting, mid forties if she had to guess. No ring on his finger, which was really all she cared about past the physical requirements. Razor was the winner of the night and he didn't even know it yet.

Sam looked at her with a look she was sure he had given Dean from across the table. 'Let him win.' She pointed at the man behind her back as she mouthed the words. Sam shrugged as if to say, 'if you're sure.' Anna nodded and watched them play.

They played for a little while, Anna purposely flirting with the biker a little before she lost all interest in the game. Finally she gave up pretending to be enthusiastic about slipping a stupid ball across a felt table.

"Hey." She whispered into Razor's ear. "You think we could get out of here?" She placed a small kiss along his pulse point.

"Well, darling, I think we could arrange that. Sorry, man, game over." He tossed his pool cue on the table and hoisted her up so that her legs were forced around his waist. Anna let out a small yelp as she heard him kick out the door to the outside. "So where do you want to go?" he finally asked as hey broke apart.

"I have a cabin about fifteen minutes from here." Anna suggested as she kept him close. "Sound good to you?"

"Sure darling, just hop on."

"Okay, let me just go tell my brother." She nodded. "Give me one second." Quickly she walked back to the bar and found Sam back at the table. "Hey, Sam." She smiled. "Look, I found another ride back home. So I'll see you there later." She told him. "Oh and if you could give me like an hour you would be the best." She looked back at him.

"Just making sure the new body works?" He questioned with a tired smile.

"Yeah, something like that." She smirked before leaving.

Razor's hands were all over her once they had made it back to the cabin. She slowly worked on the lock as he distracted her, once they made it inside they could barely make it to the couch before they were both tearing clothing off. Anna heard someone on the porch and almost ignored it but the voices got louder and she pulled herself away from Razor for a second to better hear. The sounds got louder and she pealed herself away from the complaining man. In only her underwear she padded to the closet with the guns and unlocked it. She grabbed a shotgun and loaded it before slowly opening the door.

"Private property, Buddy, get off or I shoot!" She demanded as she stepped out and pointed the loaded gun at whoever was coming up the drive. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the dark but once they did she saw two shapes walk towards her and the light. Finally she could see who it was. "Damnit Dean!" She shouted.

"Hey, Anna, put the gun down."

"No shit, Winchester!" She rolled her eyes and lowered the gun, as she did she saw the busty brunette behind him. "Oh great, you brought company." She snorted.

"Hey babe, everything okay?" Razor came out with a small pillow covering him from the waist down.

"Yeah." She smiled as she pulled him down into a kiss. "My roommate just brought company."

"It's nice to meet you." Razor muttered as he kept staring at her.

"Yeah you too." Dean smiled as he walked past them. "We will just be in here." They walked over to the stairs.

Anna and Razor got back to their business on the couch as she tried to ignore the sounds coming from upstairs. All of twenty minutes later Razor was getting dressed again and Anna was sitting wrapped in a blanket smoking a cigarette as she watched him.

"So," Anna started, tying to find a nice way to tell him to get lost.

"You don't have to say it." Razor held up his hand as he shrugged on his leather vest. "We were just riding through town anyways. You didn't ask for my name and I didn't ask yours." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss into Anna's confused lips. "It was nice to meet you, but I'm never going to see you again."

"Thank God someone else gets it. You should have seen the look on this poor sap's face in Nebraska. I'm just a love 'em and leave 'em type." She smiled finally as she stood up. "But I'll be honest you were pretty good. Top five at least." She walked over to the door and opened it for him.

"Glad to have been of service." He smiled as he stepped out.

Anna was about to open her mouth to respond but just as she did the brunette opened the door and rushed down the stairs crying. She pushed past the two of them. Anna looked up at the staircase and saw Dean in his boxers looking pissed.

"Could have at least called her a cab, asshat." She called up the stairs.

"I tried she wouldn't let me get the words out before she ran off crying. I hate criers."

Razor chuckled at Dean's words and walked down the steps to the crying girl. She saw her nod and climb on the back of his bike. Anna took in a breath. Who would have thought she met a stand up guy and actually had the good sense to bring him home? She was just about to close the door when she saw the lights of her car come in to view.

"Dean, you could have at least pretended to give a fuck about her." She scolded lightly.

"I did all she could talk about was you!" Dean yelled back.

"Well don't go blaming me for your inability to seal the deal!" She fired back at him as Sam walked in.

"What's going on?" Sam asked as he tossed the keys at her.

"Your brother couldn't get into some girls pants and now he's blaming me!" Anna yelled as she stomped around the ground level. "It's not my fault that the best place you thought to bring someone was my house! Damnit we're all out of liquor." She muttered as she looked around the kitchen. "I had a very nice night, how about you?" she spun around as she found a bottle of Kahlua and waggled her eyebrows.

"Well it really didn't help when you come out all naked hunter and scare everyone half to death." Dean trudged down the stairs.

"It's my house and if I want to be naked than I can be and the only reason I was naked was because I had a great night with someone that understood that it was a one time deal. You just have to pick your conquests better." She yelled as she dropped the blanket she was holding up to her body. "I don't think you understand just how little I care about being naked." Anna moved over to grab her underwear and slipped them on.

Dean looked like his head was going to explode; his features were twisted and scrunched in a way that made him look incredibly constipated.

"Okay, I think it would be best if everyone went to their own corners." Sam interrupted.

"It's my house, they are all my corners." Anna muttered as she poured herself a glass. "No, no it's fine I'm a big girl I can share my play things. What time is it?" she asked in a louder voice.

"A little after two." Sam looked at is watch.

"Okay, I'm going to look at the stuff in the boxes again." Anna ran a hand through her hair. "Do you have your shirt for tomorrow?" She looked at him expectantly. "Go on, go get it I can wait."

Sam looked at her cautiously but ran upstairs to grab his suit. As he came back down she saw him throw a cautionary look at Dean. Anna ignored it as she took the shirt from him and looked at it.

"See, I can be a housewife and drunk. It's like something out of the fifties." She rolled her eyes. "Okay I'll wash it for you." She smiled up at him.

"I know you said you couldn't sleep in your room do you want to sleep upstairs?" He offered in a soft voice so that Dean couldn't hear them. "You could take my bed I'll sleep on the couch."

"I'm not going to kick you out of your bed, I'll be fine here, I want to go through her stuff once more."

"Anna, you need to give this a rest there is nothing in there that won't be there in the morning." Sam pulled her a little so that she stood up.

"I won't be here in the morning! I will have to go to that dumb political thing and I won't be here."

"Dean will be, he knows what to look for. You can let others help." He held her closely.

"You guys done with your little powwow? Is this when you guys are going to tell me you're running off and getting married in Atlantic City?" He joked.

"Yeah. Sorry Dean it's been real but I chose the Jolly Green Giant." Anna made a motion to Sam.

"What?" Sam asked as he rounded on her.

"That's what I called you before I knew your name. Point is no. No, I not running off with him to Atlantic City, and no I'm not going to take your bed. I'm fine, I'm going to drink my coffee flavored liquor and I am going to look at my sisters stuff and I'm just fine!" She yelled.

"Come on." Sam demanded as he pulled her up the stairs forcing her to abandon her drink.

"What are you doing?" She protested.

"You are going to sober up, you are going to take a shower and then you are going to get in bed and go to sleep because it's your sisters' funeral and you don't know it now but you won't want to be drunk for that."

"Hang on I thought I proved I was a functioning drunk! I can add and I can tie my shoes, I'm fine. Really this is unnecessary." She complained as he forced her into the small upstairs bathroom with a push and a fresh towel. "I want you to know I'm only doing this because I need a shower and it has nothing to do with doing what you asked." She yelled as she turned on the water. She was already in the water by the time she realized that the only shampoo they had was Old Spice. Anna let out a groan and forced herself out of the warmth. "Sam, Dean!" She called as she stuck her head out of the door. "My shampoo is downstairs can you grab it for me?" she asked as Sam came into view.

"Yeah sure." Sam nodded.

She waited for a minute before she became impatient and wrapped a towel around herself before she walked out to the stairs. She heard voices and stopped.

"Sam, she's a liability!" Dean complained. "Drinking on the job? She has problems. We can't fix that. We can't be responsible for that."

"You just don't like that she's just like you and unlike you she actually has a reason to be so twisted up inside." Sam fired back still holding her shampoo.

"What reason does she have that we don't? Her mom died? News flash Sammy so did ours!" Dean barked.

"Yeah, her mom died and then her father slapped her around, and then her boyfriend did those things to her, and then she leaves all of it behind and the moment she does her sisters die! She's alone and she feels guilty, we need to help her."

"We can't help her!"

"Why not? She needs help and her sisters were killed by something, they didn't do that to themselves."

"I know but how are we going to help with her wanting to do it all herself?"

"You were all ready to help her kill the thing three days ago, what the hell happened to that?"

"Well once I noticed her binge drinking herself into oblivion things changed!"

"What the hell, man!"

"She's going to kill herself trying to figure out what killed her sister, she's going to end up like Dad."

"Since when have you thought that was a bad thing?"

"Just not her Sammy, she can't end up like that. We can't let her." Dean's voice started to crack as he spoke.

"What's got you, Dean?"

"Man, I just, I thought we gave her another chance and she just wants to be like us."

Anna started to creep back up the stairs but the floorboard creaked as she took the second step. The Winchester's both snapped their heads to look at her.

"Hey," She lifted her hand in a small wave. "I just came down to get my shampoo." She made an excuse for herself. Sam walked forward and handed her the bottle. "Thanks, I'll just go back upstairs." She muttered as she took the stairs two at a time in an attempt to get away from the awkward conversation.

She finished her shower and walked out looking for something to wear. She saw one of Dean's shirts lying on the chair and slipped it on. She waited up there, still worried that if she went down there she would walk in on another clearly personal conversations. Anna heard feet on the steps and she stood up as Dean entered the room.

"Hey Dean." She waved.

"Anna, what are you doing in my clothes?" He asked quietly as he sat down on the bed she had just vacated.

"Um, well I was done in the shower and I didn't have any clothes up here." She nervously ran a hand through her hair. "Look I heard what you said and I just wanted to say that I've never really had someone that cared so much about what I do." She plucked at her fingers a little before she kept talking. "I don't know how to categorize you. You really piss me off, and you're smug and arrogant, but you care. And you don't care because you are worried about how it will play in the papers, or because it's your way or the highway, you care about me." She was going to say more but Dean's lips capturing hers suddenly cut her off.

"Jesus, you sure talk a lot." He whispered.

Anna knew that she had talked to him more in the past but she understood his meaning. She was treading on thin ice with his emotions. The one thing they were supposed to be was emotion free, or at least they weren't supposed to talk about it. Anna just nodded and kissed him again.

"Thank you." She whispered.

Anna let him walk her over to the side of the bed and push her down. At first she thought he was trying to play it blue and she fought him off slightly. She wasn't going to sleep with him just after she had screwed some guy downstairs.

"Sleep." He muttered as he pushed her back on the pillows.

"But this is your bed. I don't want to kick you out." She protested as her head hit the pillow.

"Who said you were?" Dean asked as he walked to the other side and striped of the t-shirt and pants he was wearing. "Besides you don't want to share a bed with Sam, he snores." He sat on the bed and took off his watch.

"Oh does he?" Anna asked as she rolled over to face him and sat up, wrapping an arm around his waist. "So this is just you being selfless?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Dean smirked as he leaned into her.

"He told you, didn't he?" Her tone lost its humor and Dean stiffened.

"He showed me." Dean whispered.

"Look, just, don't pity me." Anna lay down on her back and she could feel Dean next to her do the same.

"I don't pity you. I just think you need some sleep. We need you strong if you are really going to kill that thing."

"Thank you."

"What for this time?"

"Not giving up on me." She answered after a pause. "And saving me from Sam's snores."

"Anytime." She heard as a whisper a few moments later.

Finally Anna let her eyes droop and she allowed herself to feel the tiredness she had pushed down for days. Almost subconsciously she felt her arm sling over Dean's waist and she pulled herself closer to him, her leg wrapping around his. She was almost completely asleep when she felt his hand play with the ends of her hair as he wrapped his arm around her back.

**AN: I would love to see some reviews. I have pretty tough skin so if you hate it tell me. Suggestions are more than welcome.**


	16. Chapter 16

_She was standing in a grassy field, Cassie was there, a small baby Cassandra looking up to a young Anna, she was smiling and laughing. The adult Anna laughed along with her despite not knowing what it was about. She wasn't seen by either of the young girls as she watched them. _

_"Come on Anna come and play!" Cassie called. She was wearing a hammy down dress of Anna's, the red gingham sailor dress with a thick white collar. "Anna! Please play with me!" She complained._

_"No! You're a baby! I want to play with Margaret!" Anna threw back. Suddenly adult Anna remembered this day. She remembered telling Cassie to scram because she wanted to climb trees in the orchard with their neighbor Margaret and Cassie wasn't allowed in the trees. Margaret was a year older than Anna, and Anna remembered her as the coolest person around._

_"No fair! Mom said you had to play with me!" Cassie called as Anna ran off to try and impress the older girl. "Fine if you won't play with me I'm going to the park!" Cass grumbled._

_"You're not allowed goose! You're too little to cross the big streets without mom!" Anna called back without even looking._

_"You'll see I am old enough." Cassie muttered as she walked away. _

_The adult Anna followed after her younger self, trying to remember why she thought Margaret was so cool._

_"Hi Maggie!" Anna greeted._

_The eleven year old sneered at her but she didn't tell her to go away so Anna stayed._

_"It's Margaret." The girl corrected. "Come on, if we climb the big tree high enough I bet we can see Jonny Gallindo's bed room!" the girl walked off into the grove of Avocado trees._

_"I don't know Margaret, mom says we shouldn't climb that one, we could hurt ourselves." Anna protested but shut up when she saw Margaret's gaze._

_"Are you always going to do what your mother says?" She asked._

_"No." Anna responded as she followed her to the big tree that hung over the fence._

_"Good, then come on I have a surprise." The adult Anna tried to say something but the words got caught in her throat all that came out were gargling sounds that the girls ignored. They were up in the tree further than Anna had ever been but she was trying to act cool and not totally afraid. Margaret stopped climbing and held out a slim carton along with a matchbook. "I stole these from my mother, don't worry she's so drunk she won't notice." Margaret shrugged off Anna's protests as she pulled out a cigarette and held it to her lips. She lit it and took an exaggerated puff before handing it to Anna. "Here you try." She smiled like Anna could trust her._

_"I don't know, aren't these like really bad for you?" Anna questioned._

_"Come on Anna, at least try it. It's cool." Margaret took another drag before pushing the thing into Anna's hands. "You do want to be cool right?"_

_"I mean, yeah I guess." Anna looked at the stick in her hands. Slowly she held the cigarette up to her mouth and sucked in a breath. She tried to force it into her lungs but she came up coughing and spluttering for air. "I don't think I really like them." Anna muttered as she tried to stop coughing._

_"Just give it another try you have to get used to them." Margaret encouraged. _

_Anna took another half dozen pulls off the cigarette before she started to feel sick and more than a little dizzy. She tried to hand the thing back to Margaret. The girl took it with a roll of her eyes._

_"You're such a baby, you should have just gone with your sister to the park." Margaret pushed at her shoulder and Anna wobbled slightly. "Oh come on, it's a cigarette." She scoffed and pushed her again. "Can't take a little fun, Anna?" She pushed again and Anna was falling. _

_The adult Anna tried to catch her younger self but it was impossible. The young girl hit the ground hard and she could hear something pop. Margaret was down in a flash and she looked over Anna._

_"Get my Mom!" Anna shouted as tears flooded her eyes. _

_"You should go to the hospital." Margaret was too calm about everything._

_"Please get my mom!" Anna was begging at that point her arm was on fire._

_"Sure I'll go get your mother, but you better not tell her what happened." Margaret threatened._

_"I won't I promise please get my mom!" Anna screeched as she tried to move her arm. It was broken in three places and she would be in the cast for the rest of the summer, adult Anna could remember how miserable that whole year had been and it had only started with the cast._

_Margaret eventually got Anna's mother down to the orchard and the older red head started fretting over her daughter. Anna made up some story about tripping over her feet while playing tag and she could see her mother didn't believe her but she didn't press her until she smelt the smoke._

_"Anna, have you been smoking back here?" She asked in a deadly serious voice._

_"No." The ten year olds poker face left a lot to be desired._

_"Come on." Her mother helped her up careful of her arm. "Margaret, you come too I'll call your mother back at the house." _

_"Mom, I promise we weren't smoking." Anna continued to defend herself until she saw her mother's face and knew to shut it._

_"Where is your sister?"_

_"I don't know, she left?" Anna bit her lip and waited for the yelling she knew she was going to get._

_"Where did she go?"_

_"I don't know!" Anna yelled and her mother looked like she was going to explode. "She talked about going to the park but I told her not to."_

_"Let's get back to the house. I'll head over to the park once we get some ice for your arm. And you promise you weren't climbing the big tree?"_

_"No." Anna shook her head._

_They walked in silence and the adult Anna followed tears threatening to spill over as she watched them. Her mother set them both at the kitchen table and warned them not to move until she got back. She handed an ice pack to Anna and grabbed her wallet and keys. As soon as the door closed Anna turned on Margaret._

_"You got me in trouble! See I knew we shouldn't have done that!" Anna yelled._

_"It's your fault!" Margaret told her._

_"Margaret, my mom is going to kill me and yours is too!" Anna whined as she looked away. _

_Adult Anna was looking at Margaret with horror. Why had she ever thought this girl was so cool? She knew how the story ended and this had all been her fault._

_"Don't be so sure." Margaret whispered and adult Anna sucked in a breath as she saw the little girls eyes flash black before returning to normal._

_The older Anna ran out of the house following the streets that looked just like she remembered, to the park she knew Cassie would be at. She made it to the park just to watch her mother come to a stop across the street, she had just peeked out into the road to see if anyone was coming when Margret's mom came flying down the road, drunk out of her mind, no doubt on her way to the liquor store for more cigarettes. She didn't even see the old avocado station wagon with wood paneling. The cars smashed into each other. Anna cried, she fell to her knees crying as she knew her mother was dead and Margaret's mother would live for another three years before she over dosed on a special concoction of Vicodin and Oxycontin._

_"Anna! Anna! ANNA!" she heard her name being called over and over again._

Someone was shaking her awake yelling her name over her own screams. Suddenly she was awake enough to realize that she was screaming and she shut her mouth. It was dark but not as dark as it was when she closed her eyes. Her head hurt and she had to force herself to look at the world. Slowly her eyes opened and she saw both Sam and Dean towering over her.

"Margaret." She whispered.

"No, his name is Sam. I know it can be confusing sometimes but he claims to be a real boy." Dean chuckled as he lay back down next to her.

"Shut up, Jerk." Sam snorted before he looked back at Anna with a concerned look. "Are you okay? Who's Margaret?"

Anna looked at Sam for a minute before she looked over at the clock next to the beds. It was already six.

"No one." Anna lied as she stood up. "Dean was right, I thought you looked like a Margaret." Anna rushed downstairs. "Look I'm going to need the downstairs for a little bit while I get ready so do what you got to do now." Anna called. She could feel Sam behind her.

"Anna, come on, you can tell me." Sam whispered as they walked into Anna's old room and she opened the closet still full of Robbie approved clothing. "I told you about the dream thing you can tell me."

She hated that she was going to wear this stuff again but she really didn't have too many other options. She pulled out a knee length green satin dress and a pair of black pumps.

"I don't want to talk about it Sam. Shit I never cleaned your shirt." She moved around him and bustled around looking for the steamer she knew she kept somewhere for Robbie's work shirts. "Sam, I just don't have time for this right now. Maybe after all of this is over I'll let you play therapist but right now I have to focus on one thing at a time and I am incredibly hung over and all I want to do is rest my head on a toilet seat but I can't so just let it go." She had moved into the bathroom and was trying to work out her hair while the steamer woke up.

Makeup and hair, getting dressed, picking out the right shoes, then dealing with Sam's shirt and finally two hours later it was all done. They were as put together as they were going to be Anna heard Dean commenting on the way her ass looked in her dress and she was three seconds away from ripping his head off before she just decided to tune him out. She looked like a republican, maybe a cute, sexy Californian republican but a republican nonetheless. Dean said she looked like a librarian and she assumed that meant maybe she could tone down the sex vibe. She was quite sure the only librarian he had ever seen were the one's in his pornography.

"Okay," Dean walked towards her at a snails pace. "Now very slowly I want you to take down your hair and say, 'Mister Winchester, is there anything I can help you with?'" Dean moved closer to her and started grinning.

"We are going to be late." Anna muttered as she looked away from him with a roll of her eyes and took her last sip of coffee before grabbing her bag. "Here, Sam you can drive." She tossed him the keys.

"You haven't been drinking have you?" Sam asked with a suspicious look.

"If I could have found the time to drink this morning, trust me I would have." Anna rolled her eyes again as she grabbed her coat, his mothering was starting to wear thin.

"Then why do you want me to drive?" Sam was suspicious.

"Because I don't plan to stay sober for long." Anna looked at him with a bored expression. "They are going to want me to talk. I have never talked in front of a crowd sober before and I don't intend to start now."

"Anna."

"No Sam, just no. If I know my father, or more accurately the twenty something receptionist he's screwing, this thing is going to be a bunch of high ranking military men all boozing it up." She walked out the door before they could argue with anything else.

She made herself comfortable in the passenger seat and honked for Sam to come out. Finally he made it around the car and climbed in. the ride was silent as Anna nursed her headache and popped several large ibuprofen and stole Sam's coffee to wash them down. She hated being sober. When they made it to the house after Anna purposely gave him the wrong directions to the base and then acted like she had forgotten her military ID to get on, it was an absolute circus. They were five minutes late and people were swarming the house, bringing in large amounts of white flowers in silver vases and chafing dishes.

"Oh God he's making it a thing." Anna groaned as they pulled around the corner. "It's going to be garish and televised and Nicole would have hated this. Come on I see Mike's car, there here." Anna got out grudgingly. "Remind me that these are my sisters and I love them." She requested quietly as they walked together across the street.

"These are your sisters and you love them." Sam muttered as he fixed his tie.

"Oh don't you be nervous." Anna chided as she looped her arm with his, "Remember this is my father I have to deal with, you, on the other hand get to be anonymous. We could give you a fake name, it would be very cloak and dagger." Anna joked, as her footsteps became smaller hoping he wouldn't notice.

"We will have to get there eventually." Sam shrugged. "We can either get there on time or we can be very late and draw attention to ourselves." He offered with a smirk she thought only Dean could wear, apparently it ran in the family.

"Your right I shouldn't have brought the Jolly Green Giant with me, the shorter one would have drawn less attention." Anna joked trying to delay going inside. She could already see the limo they would be taking sit parked outside.

"Hilarious, now let's go." Sam gave her a little push.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." Anna muttered as she walked in through the front door. "Hello Sir." She saluted as she saw him standing there glaring at her.

"Good you're here I thought you were going to stand out there all day." He barked. "Who is this?" he looked Sam up and down. "Anna, I thought we agreed no dates." He looked at her like Sam didn't even exist.

"No, I said date and you said no. I decided to bring one anyways." She tried to muster up the same confidence she had felt when she talked to him on the phone.

"What are you wearing?" He kept scolding her like he hadn't heard her response.

"The dress I bought for the Christmas party this year. Since I'm not going to be attending I thought now was a good time as any. Sir." She added as an afterthought.

"Green to a funeral?" He asked his voice getting tighter as he spoke. "Most people wear black."

"You won't sir." Anna glared at his uniform.

"This is different, a uniform is a sign of respect. You are going to look like some sort of harlot."

"No Sir, I am going to look like I didn't have enough time to go shopping because I was packing up my dead sisters belongings and taking care of my other sister's children. This is Sam." She turned slightly to turn his attention to Sam.

"Hello sir, Sam Winchester." He greeted as he held out his hand.

The general looked at him for a moment before he grasped at his hand so hard Anna saw him flinch before matching him. Anna tried to suppress her groan at the blatant pissing contest.

"No relation to John Winchester?" He asked with a scowl.

"Ah, yeah, he's my father. I'm sorry, how do you know him?" Sam looked confused.

"We served together in Vietnam. He's a good man, an honorable man. I actually invited him today but I haven't seen him in years. He got me out of a tight situation, I probably wouldn't be here today if it weren't for him." Anna's mouth dropped, that was possibly the longest he had ever talked about his time at war. On top of all of that, it was probably the nicest he had ever been to someone she brought into the house. "Well, we should probably go. The service is at ten."

"It is amazing to me that you could think to invite a man that you have literally not seen in decades but you have somehow managed to forget to invite even one of Cassie's friends. Sir." Her tone was becoming tight but she managed to stay on just the right side of angry.

"We all know the type of friends she ran around with at that school. This is not the place for them. If they want to use my daughter as an excuse to get drunk and high I won't allow them to do it in my house with my coworkers present. I suggest you watch your tone before you do or say something you regret."

The limo was quiet, Michael and Toby both looked like they had seen a ghost and Anna felt riddled with guilt for the way she blurted it all out. She looked at the bar along the side of the limo. Sam was closer than she was and she made a pointed look at him and then the bar. He frowned before handing her a can of something. Anna smiled but it disappeared as she saw what it was. Diet Cola, it wasn't even name brand. She frowned before reaching over for the good stuff.

"Anna, at least stay sober enough to give your condolences." Her father muttered in a gruff voice that cut through the silence like an axe.

"Sir," She started but stopped as she saw the distraught looks on her nephew's faces. "Fine." She mumbled and put the bottle back in its place.

Anna half listened to the service, obviously given the nature of their deaths it was a closed casket but something about seeing the two boxes her sister's lay in was disturbing to her on a whole new level. She stood and sat at the appropriate times but she wasn't hearing the words that were being said, she was looking at the boxes. She didn't even realize it was over until she was being ushered out of the pew to place a flower on each of their caskets and walk away from them forever. Anna looked at the stupid Calla Lilly and couldn't help but laugh as she heard Nicole in her head calling them vagina flowers. They both would have hated this whole thing; this was just some posturing event for her father to puff out like a peacock and it was all organized by someone with incredibly poor and over the top taste. She exited the church and was immediately bombarded with cameras and microphones jammed in her face.

"Anna, what do you think about your sisters' deaths?" One lady asked.

"I think I lost my best friends, they were both incredibly wonderful women and there isn't a day that will go by that I won't miss them." She had rehearsed the line in her head a million times but when it exited her mouth it was devoid of any emotion and made her sound incredibly disingenuous.

"What is your comment about rumors that you are now romantically involved with your sister, Nicole's, husband?" Some man asked as he elbowed his way to the front of the pack.

"I won't dignify that disgusting question with a response. I would never in anyway shape or form disgrace the memory of my sister, or the lives she created with her husband and to infer otherwise is abhorrent." She turned her head away from them and somehow found Sam standing behind her.

She made her way towards him and leaned close.

"How the hell would anyone know that? We aren't celebrities, who the hell is spreading rumors about me?" She whispered.

"Just let it go." Sam advised as they walked back to the car.

"No it just seems more than a little odd that people are so obsessed with the Fulton sister's fidelity. I mean both Cassie and Nicole were supposed to be having affairs and now someone is accusing me? My life is a lot of things but I don't think anyone has ever asked me who I'm sleeping with."

"What do you think it is?" Sam rolled her eyes but he listened to her.

"Well is there such a thing as a sex obsessed monster?" Anna looked at him and begged silently that he wouldn't laugh.

Sam let out a snort but it stopped there.

"I know people that would call Dean that?" He rolled his eyes and started walking away. "Anna, not everything is a monster. Sometimes it's just natural human curiosity." He opened the door to the limo but Anna wasn't looking at him She was staring at her father rub elbows with the media and her brow furrowed. Usually he had no patience for them. "Anna, what's wrong?"

"Nothing." She answered softly as she tore her glare away from the circus. "You are probably right, just human curiosity." She stepped into the limo when Sam's phone started ringing.

"It's Dean. I'll be right back." Sam told her as he walked around the back of the church with his phone pressed to his ear. He was back in minutes looking worried.

"What was it?" Anna climbed out of the car to look at him.

"He told me another body has been found on Campus." Sam looked around for anyone listening. "It was the maths professor, Gregory Yeltsin." He finally glanced at Anna to see her reaction. "Guess who found him?"

"Who?" Anna tried to spark an emotional reaction for the dead man but she felt nothing.

"Joanna Mulbrey."

"Cassie's Roommate? This is the third body she has discovered inside a week."

"Yeah, and that's not all, it looks like it was a suicide." Sam nodded along once he realized that she wasn't about to break down on her.

"Just like Cassie and Nikki's. Well there goes the gypsy wife theory." Anna muttered as she pulled her hands onto her hips.

"Why is that?" Sam asked.

"Because when a woman wants revenge for infidelity she blames the other woman. Sure she talks about wanting to rip off the man's dick but she won't. I could see a woman being driven to kill the other woman but no way is she going to kill her husband." Anna shook her head.

"How do you know that?" Sam looked skeptical.

"Because, I'm a woman and I can't ever see myself killing my husband for cheating, I can however see myself killing the other woman." Anna shrugged.

"You shot your boyfriend in the head." Sam looked incredulous.

"That's different, I feared for my life. This guy, this Gregory Yeltsin, he didn't threaten her life; he didn't even threaten her green card. No, there is no way I am putting this one on the gypsy. Hey do you think Dean want's us over there?" She asked hoping to get out of the party.

"He told me to get my ass over there." Sam rolled his eyes as he imitated Dean.

"Well you sure as hell aren't leaving me here alone." Anna warned. "Come on let's go before anyone notices we are gone." It must have been something about the way she said it, or maybe it was just that he knew she was going to follow after him if he left without her but Sam agreed and they managed to hail a taxi back to the house to get her car. It took them a bit longer but Anna refused to leave her car with her father.

"There you are!" Dean called as he saw Sam walk across the grass towards him. "What the hell is she doing here? I thought I told you to leave her at the party." He whispered to Sam so that Anna couldn't hear; only he was very bad a whispering and Anna did hear.

"Well she wanted to tag along and she wasn't going to be left behind." She smiled at Dean in greeting.

"Whatever, just, don't touch anything." Dean was very dismissive and Anna wanted to shout back at him but she was unable to because he kept talking. "So it looks like we can cross gypsy off the list." He pointed up to the ceiling where the professor was still hanging. "I don't care how mad a woman gets, she doesn't kill the husband." He stated and Anna groaned softly. "She gives him warts or something sure but she ain't going to kill him"

She was glad that he agreed but hated that they thought so much the same.

"Anyone else think it's odd that the same person found the bodies?" Anna asked. "I don't know it seems like a stretch, Joanna seems like a nice girl and after loosing her mother and everything I feel bad for even saying it, but it just seems odd to me."

"She lost her mother?" Sam asked, suddenly very interested in the roommate.

"Yeah, when she was a baby, I think, she said something about a house fire."

Sam was silent but she saw Dean throwing him cautious looks. Clearly he was perturbed by the information Anna had just delivered. "Hey Bobo." Anna greeted cautiously as she walked up to the sobbing young woman.

"Oh my God, Anna! What are you doing here?" Joanna cried as she ran into Anna's arms. "I just found him like this. I came in to check on my midterm but he was just hanging there. I heard his wife isn't even upset, she was here a while ago screaming in some language. She spit on his feet." Joanna burst into another wave of tears. "There's a rumor that he was having a affair with one of his students so he gets whatever is waiting for him in hell."

"I didn't realize that you were, I just didn't know that's how you felt." Anna's eyes widened.

"I know there were rumors about Cassie but you have to know that if they held any grain of truth she was sinning. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, I know she made some mistakes in her life. We were just on campus when we heard it happened." Anna lied, hoping Joanna was too busy being the center of attention to ask for a reason.

"Oh, was it about Cassie's memorial because some of us were going to chip in and get her a tree." Joanna's tears dried as she started talking about it. "It was all my idea really but I got some of the professors on board and well my Dad is obviously going to be footing the bill." She babbled and Anna could feel herself getting trapped in the girls mindless droll over a tree Cassie probably would have laughed at. "You know Cassie was super obsessed with documenting everything in her life. I think she had these recordings she made of herself talking, but you cleaned out all of her stuff before I could get them to make a sort of tribute to her, you know for the unveiling. Did you see those anywhere? Maybe they were tucked behind some books or something?"

Joanna's sudden curiosity for the tapes made Anna remember the CD's she had found in the false bottom drawer. Why did Joanna want them, how did she even know about them? Cassie was obviously hiding them from someone, she felt bad that she had forgotten about them, they were just sitting on the coffee table at home. Whatever Joanna's need for them was Anna wasn't going to give them to her without looking through them first.

"I think there might have been something in one of the boxes. It's so sweet of you to think of all of that." She patted the girl on the back but her brain was already focused on something else. Her voice adapted a twang to it that only came out while she was lying her ass off. It made her crap at poker and worthless at getting out of anything.

"I never realized you were from the south?" Joanna asked as they walked out of the building and over to a small bench.

"Yep so far south it's almost Mexico." She smiled and her accent lessened as she started telling the truth. "I was born in Laredo, Texas but we moved after my mother died."

"Oh, Cassie always talked about Michigan. I'm from Kansas, my father has his church there."

"Yeah we spent maybe three years in Michigan with an Aunt while my Dad was deployed. It's where Cassie did a bunch of her growing up." Anna smiled, she found Joanna a little strange, slightly desperate for attention, and more than a little absolute on her stance on fidelity but she did seem genuinely upset about Cassie's death, more upset about her roommate than the professor. "Look, I have to go." She saw Sam waving for her. "But I will call you about the tapes." She smiled as she got up and walked away.

If she had looked behind her she would have seen the girl's face morph from sad to furious in a flash.


	17. Chapter 17

They walked back to Dean's car and Anna could feel eyes on her. She stopped for a minute and looked around, someone was following her she could feel it. Sam and Dean kept walking across the parking lot while Anna stopped trying to figure out what it was. She was just about to start walking again when a young blonde woman with a notepad came rushing across the asphalt.

"Ms. Fulton!" She clacked her way over waving her pen as she ran. "Ms. Fulton! My name is Grace Declan I was just hoping I could get your statement." She finally got close enough and paused to take in a breath.

"Who are you with? Because I've never been asked to give a statement on the colour of the sky much less anything some major media outlet would dream of publishing." Anna let out a breath when she realized that it was just some over ambitious reporter.

"Well with your father announcing his retirement and next year being an election year, he has been front runner for a seat in The House." The girl looked confused.

"The House, as in The House of Representatives? Are you out of your mind? The General hates politics he would never get in bed with them."

"You can't not know this? Every political blog on the web is calling it."

"I don't have a computer and even if I did I really couldn't give a rats left ass cheek about politics so ask your question and leave." Anna shook her head as she looked at both Sam and Dean with a shrug like she had no idea.

"Okay, so there have been rumors that you are sleeping with your dead sister's husband." Anna cut her off with a glare.

"No." She shook her head and started laughing quietly. "What is it with everyone caring about my sex life? You want a list of the people I have slept with? Okay here goes, and every one of your rat nosed reporter friends will print it and I will never here from any of you ever again! I lost my virginity at fourteen years old to a boy named Jimmy Moon, at sixteen I met Robbie Carlson in high school and we were romantically involved until a year ago when I killed him after years of raping me, after that I had a slue of one night stands with men that don't even have faces in my memory, last week I was in Nebraska and I picked up a man named James, I never got a last name, and finally last night I went home with a man in a motorcycle gang and I only ever got a nickname, Razor. I have never in my life slept with Michael; on top of that I have never slept with a married man. Is that enough information for you?"

The reporter nodded as she took furious notes on the small pad of paper.

"Thank you that was more than I needed." Grace smiled in an almost wicked way.

"Good, now I'm leaving." She turned back to Sam and Dean, both of whom looked stunned. Anna stared at Dean for a second before turning around and calling out for Grace to turn back to them. "Oh, I forgot, him too, twice, somewhere in between James and Razor."

"Can I get a name?"

"No." Anna closed one of her eyes and tilted her head while she pretended to think. "No, I don't think so."

"Why not."

"Because it's my life and you knowing his name isn't going to add anything to your story. You have enough to knock my father down three pegs, take it and scram." She glared at the woman before she stomped back to the car.

Once they made it back to the house Anna rushed in for the tapes she had left on the table. They were unlabeled and now she was cursing herself for ever forgetting them.

"Sam, can I use your computer?" She muttered the question as she heard the door slam shut. "I found these in my sister's things but I forgot about them. Joanna was so interested in them something has to be on them, right?" She could hear the panic in her voice; she knew her eyes were wide and scared. She was terrified that she was actually going to find whatever had done this and she was still going to have all this anger with nowhere to direct it.

"Yeah, sure." Sam gave her the laptop but he wasn't done asking questions. He wasn't just going to let it go. "Why didn't you show us the tapes? We could have gone through them, we could have figured it out before Yeltsin ended up strung up on the ceiling!" He was yelling and Anna couldn't figure out why. Dean yelled about things not Sam. This was wrong.

"I forgot about them! Are you seriously blaming me for his death? These could be pictures of anything!" Anna became defensive. "What the hell Sam? I just forgot they were stashed with a bunch of weed, it didn't seem important!" Her hands were shaking as she pushed the CD into the slot.

"You need to tell us if we are going to help you!" Sam frowned.

"Sam, it was an accident. Stop yelling at me and get this thing to play." She slapped her hand on the keyboard as a bunch of gibberish flooded the screen. "Damnit, what did I do?"

"Here let me see." Sam's voice became softer but there was still an air of judging in his voice. "It's encrypted."

"Cassie encrypted her photos?" Anna asked her anger at Sam dissipating as she looked over his shoulder.

"It's going to take hours to get through this." Sam muttered as he pressed keys and looked concerned.

"Hours?" Anna echoed trying to hide her frustration and doing a poor job of it.

"Yes, Anna, hours." He looked pissed and Anna recognized it immediately as a look he frequently gave Dean. "I know how to download illegal movies from less than reputable sources, I'm not a computer hacker. It's going to take hours."

"Fine." Anna threw up her hands and stomped to the kitchen. She could feel Dean behind her but he didn't saw anything so she didn't break the silence.

"Why didn't you give them my name?" Dean finally asked as he came up behind her and barricaded her against the counter with his arms. "When the reporter asked my name you didn't give it, why is that?" his chin rested on her shoulder.

"Because you aren't someone I plan on ditching in the morning. As much as I hate to say it, I need you, I need the knowledge, but mostly I need the out that you give me. If I'm with you I can pick up and go whenever, where ever, if I'm not with you I'm stuck here. You aren't Jimmy Moon under the bleachers at a football game, you aren't Robbie Carlson beating my brain in with a belt, you aren't James or Razor, or that guy four months ago that only kissed my neck, you are Dean Winchester and you're different." She didn't face him until she was done speaking.

"Do you plan on sleeping with me tonight?" He asked with a smirk.

"Maybe." She whispered the words as her lips reached closer to his. "Maybe." She smiled.

Anna and Dean both rolled back on the bed, slightly out of breath. She pulled the sheet around her chest and smiled as she looked at him.

"I'm not going to lie, you are the best way to kill an hour." Anna leaned over the bed looking for her underwear.

"Don't go." Dean muttered as he turned over and slung his arm over her waist. He closed his eyes like he was sleeping but Anna knew he was still awake.

"What?" Anna frowned.

"Stay and take a nap, Sam's not going to be done with that computer for a while and you aren't going to want to be around while he's fighting with it." Dean argued as he pulled her in closer and she didn't stop him.

"You know, I never pegged you as cuddle person." Anna laughed.

"I'm not, trust me I'm not a cuddle person. I'm just trying to run defense for you, Sam can be a real bitch when he's working on that computer."

"Oh yeah, Just like how he snores?" Anna questioned with a raised eyebrow just before her head relaxed into the pillow.

"That's me, always trying to be helpful." Dean shrugged.

"I have news for you buddy, it's not Sam that snores." She whispered as sleep overtook her.

"Hey guys!" The yell jolted her up in bed.

Anna looked around and she was alone, she heard a flush of a toilet and Dean walked out of the bathroom fully dressed. She was still naked and for a second she couldn't remember how she had gotten that way. Her sleep had been deep and dreamless; Anna hadn't slept that well since she was little.

"Guys! I got it!" Sam stormed into the room not even pausing to recognize Anna sitting there naked.

She frowned for a second and then realized that she liked it. She liked that he didn't care that she was sitting there wrapped in a sheet on his brother's bed. Maybe he was getting used to her, she was becoming one of the boys, or maybe he was just over her flashing him whenever she felt like it. Whatever the reason was she was glad he didn't care.

"What did you get?" Anna asked as she pulled on her clothes under the sheet. "Was it the tapes? Are they watchable? Did you see any of them?" She asked him with rapid speed as she stood up and straightened out the rumpled shirt and sweats.

"I watched some of it, just a little, but Anna maybe you don't want to watch them. Maybe you want to just wait for Dean and I to go through them. Or maybe I should just do it, I'll tell you if anything um strange happens." Sam sounded guilty like maybe he knew something she didn't.

"What is it?" Anna frowned. "She was my sister I'm pretty sure I can take it. Whatever it is, whatever Cassie was filming it couldn't be that bad. We shared everything."

"If you're sure." Sam looked dubious as he looked over at Dean.

"I'm sure." Anna nodded as she pushed past both of them and headed down the stairs to Sam's computer.

Her head shot forward as she saw what was on the screen. She tilted her view a little just to make sure she was really seeing what she thought she was seeing.

"Jesus Christ, Cass!"

There were a certain number of things Anna never wanted to see. She liked to think that her number of things was a lot lower than most people's number of things but still they were there. She never wanted to see her father naked, she never wanted to see Oasis get back together, but most of all, on the very top of her list, she never wanted to see her baby sister doing the reverse cowgirl.

"Sam! Sam!" She started beating on the handrail leading upstairs as she yelled. "What the hell? This is what you mean when you said I wouldn't like this?" She asked as she saw him. "You could have at least told me my sister was filming pornography. A little warning would have been nice. Oh there are so many things in the world, so many things that I would rather see than this! I would have rather seen her killing puppies than this, this is wrong!"

"Oh come on it's not that bad." Dean walked forward as he looked at the screen. "Looks like the girl's got moves." He laughed as Anna smacked him upside the head.

"That is my sister, my dead sister, you ass. Stop complimenting her form. That's what Cassie was doing on the tapes? Just sex?"

"We would have to go through it to know for sure." Sam offered, running a hand through his hair.

"How long is it? How much of this do we have to slog through?"

"Six hours." Sam whispered looking pained and refusing to make eye contact with her.

"Six hours?" No that had to be some sort of mistake, Anna could not believe there were six hours of her sister having sex. "What in the -? How in the -? Six hours?" She asked again. "Was she going for some kind of record or something?"

"Six hours doesn't make a record." Dean smirked and Anna glowered at him.

"Oh because you would know? What's your record, seven minutes? I never clocked it or anything but I'm pretty sure you could just barely fit a Twisted Sister song in there." Anna growled at him.

"Twisted Sister, really?" Dean looked more put off by her reference to 80s pop bands than her insult.

"Sorry I couldn't think of a better band reference I'm only a little distracted by the fact that my sister has a sex tape!"

"I'm better than a Twisted Sister song." He pouted.

"Oh, honey, don't worry I'll stroke your ego later." She fiend concern as her eyes narrowed.

"It's not my ego that needs stroking." Anna could feel her face burning with anger, if she were in a cartoon her head would have swollen to the size of Jupiter and it would be seconds away from exploding.

"Seriously? Why the hell do I sleep with you?"

"Because I'm better than a Twisted Sister song."

"Not enough." Anna sat on the couch looking at the screen without seeing what was there. "Okay so six hours, I guess I have some work to do."

"You are going to watch all of it?"

"If that's what I need to do to find this thing then yes."

"Should I get the popcorn?" Dean asked, either not picking up on her anger or just not caring.

"Popcorn, to watch my dead sister's sex tape? Your tact knows no bounds."

"Popcorn it is." Dean walked into the kitchen and Anna placed her head in her hands as she felt Sam sit next to her.

"Why?" She asked without looking at him. "Why would Cassandra do this? Why do I let him get to me? Why can't I figure this out? Why did I forget the stupid tapes? Why can't I just let you help me?"

"Because you don't want our help. You're like Dean, you're like my dad." Sam explained softly but Anna could hear the stress in his voice. "You think you have to do everything by yourself for it to mean anything."

"Why does that not sound like a compliment?" Anna laughed dryly.

"It could be because I ran away from my father when I was seventeen to go to university. The only reason I'm back in this mess is to find the thing that killed Jessica."

"That was her name, Jessica? This is going to sound really strange and super insensitive but I had a bunny when I was six named Jessica." She finally looked over at Sam and smiled. "Because she was Jessica Rabbit, get it?" Sam snorted a laugh. "I was six, 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' had just come out and I thought it was clever."

"No, it's not that, it's just she used to joke about that too. She didn't look like Jessica Rabbit or anything, I mean she was beautiful and sexy but she didn't look like her, but she could do the voice." Sam looked lost in memories and Anna grabbed his hand without looking at him.

"We are pretty fucked up aren't we?" She asked quietly.

"Yeah."

"Don't run away again." She whispered. "After you kill whatever evil thing you're after, don't run away."

"Why?"

"Because if you do I'll be stuck with someone just like me and I don't always like the person I see in the mirror. You balance me out, not many people can do that. Nikki, she could do it." Her whispers became wet trying to hold back the tears she felt. "Every time, every time I was rushed into the ER or had to be scraped off some floor coughing up blood she was there. She would listen to these stories I would make up and patch me up without question. And each time I would think that I had fooled her until I went to leave because that's when the speech would come. We would fight but we both knew when I needed her again she would be there. Growing up without a mother makes you strong; having a sibling that would do anything for you makes you invincible. I'm not invincible anymore; I'm not invincible because I couldn't be there for her. The one time she needed me, really needed me, I couldn't be there for her. Just don't run away, you never know when your brother is going to need you."

"Alright let's do this!" Dean hollered as he walked back through the hall and landed on her other side. Anna wanted to scream at him and beat his head in with a pillow but instead of doing anything like that she grabbed a handful of popcorn as pressed start. She was more like Dean than she wanted to admit even to herself.

Hours. Hours and hours of sex, all with different men, ages, races, and sizes. Sex in all different ways, with different sounds and toys, positions Anna wasn't even aware of, some which looked comfortable, others that looked downright painful. But only one of the men stood out. Tall and tan with thick long black hair that kept cursing in Russian in between moans. Anna was just about to turn away, convinced that this was not helpful and not something she should be looking at. Cassie wouldn't have wanted her to look at. But that was when she heard it, the door creaked open and a voice out of the shot started yelling.

"Oh my God! Cassie! I knew I should have gotten a new roommate. You are sick you know that?" Yeltsin rushed to pull his pants on as he ran out of the room. "He's married, Cassandra! It's a sin!" Joanna came into focus as she walked forward.

"I'm not religious! God doesn't exist and even if he did he wouldn't care about a little sex." Cassie started collecting her clothes as she yelled.

"God is God! He doesn't care if you believe in him. Having an affair is a sin and you will go to hell!"

"Wow Bobo, that is really progressive of you. You know she doesn't even sleep with him anymore? She just looks at him, they aren't married."

"They made a vow before God and He will judge him, his day will come. Marriage is forever, it is sacred and you and him have sullied it. You have made something pure and innocent dirty!" Cassie had just started to move towards the camera hidden in her closet to turn it off when Anna saw it. The silver picture frame that was missing from her stuff went flying across the room but neither of them touched it. Joanna looked like she was having an aneurism.

Anna leaned forward and pressed pause.

"Did you guys see that?" She asked slowly. "It moved, it moved all on it's own. Picture frames don't move on their own. How the hell did that happen?" Anna asked as she looked between both of them.

"Did the girl do that?" Dean asked as he put down the empty popcorn bowl.

"Well it wasn't Cassie! Cassie can't do something like that!" Anna screeched as she got up and walked to the box of files they had on everyone before she found the one on Joanna.

"Joanna, it has to be Joanna. I mean I know she looks like a sorority girl but she has to have some evil juju in her, right? Maybe she's a Gypsy or a witch? She could be a demon, or a shape shifter, I read about those somewhere. It has to be her right?" She ran a hand through her hair as she flipped through the thin file. The girl was perfect, not a scratch or ding anywhere. "Joanna Mulbrey, age twenty two, she graduated from Lawrence High, she's from freaking Kansas! How freaking Apple Pie is that? Her mother died in a house fire when she was a baby. Her dad is a preacher! And now she goes around smashing things with her mind!"

"Anna, I need you to take a deep breath." Sam walked towards her slowly with his arms raised slightly.

"Is that what you saw?" She asked finally after catching her breath.

"What does that mean Sammy?" Dean asked as he stepped forward too and grabbed the file out of her hand. "What does it mean you seeing things?"

"Uh -"

"Damnit Sam, tell him!" Anna yelled at his stalling. "Dean your brother saw my sister die in a dream two days before it happened. He didn't want to tell you because he's scared and I promised to keep his secret but now he is going to be the only one to know if Joanna was really doing it." Anna spilled the beans as she looked at Sam. "Now is that what you saw?" She bellowed at him.

"I saw Cassandra begging for her life and watched her hand be forced to cut into her own wrist. That's all I saw I promise."

"Hang on you saw it?" Dean looked disgusted. "Like in a vision? Dude, you get visions? What are you some kind of psychic?"

"I don't know I just get these dreams, I can't control them and when I wake up I can't get them out of my brain." Sam looked at his brother and Anna could tell that they were going to be fighting about it for a while.

Slowly, in an attempt not to draw attention to herself, she walked over to the gun cabinet and pulled out a semi automatic pistol and shoved it into the waistband of her pants. By the time Sam and Dean heard the door slam shut behind her she had already run over to her car and started the engine. She was going to put a bullet in whatever had killed her sister, even if it was someone that just looked like a little girl.

Anna had already made it onto the freeway towards the school before she saw the black impala in her rear view mirrors. This time she didn't take comfort in the fact that he was riding her ass but she didn't have time to slow down. She pressed her foot harder into the floor of the car and heard the engine whine.

"Come on baby, a little faster, just a little bit more." She whispered as she patted the dashboard. The car let out a splutter and then moved faster.

Finally she made it to the building, she could hear Sam and Dean trying to stop her as she flew up the stairs there was a heavy metal trashcan sitting on the hall and Anna dragged it over so that it blocked the stairway entrance to the second floor. No one was going to stop her. She walked down the hall and knocked on the door.

"Anna! Hi, it's so late I'm not even dressed, let me just clean up some of this mess." Joanna let her in as she gestured at the stack of clothes sitting in a cardboard box. "I'm moving. I just can't sleep knowing Cassie killed herself right here and her sister, I don't know, I just can't sleep. So what brings you around here? Did you find the recordings?"

"Uh, yeah, you know I slipped them in my bag and just forgot about them." Anna started sweating as she walked further into the room. "Actually I came to give them to you." She smiled, she hated lying her accent became thicker again as she fidgeted slightly. "I didn't watch them or anything." She offered, placing her bag down on a box and pretending to look through it. "I – um – I just have one question."

"What's that?" Joanna smiled but now Anna could see the guilt behind her eyes.

"Why did you kill them?" She asked, drawing the gun out from the waistband of the sweats she was wearing. "Why did you kill my sisters?"

Joanna's mouth dropped open and she raised her hands up as a sign of surrender.

"I didn't kill them, them killed themselves." She whispered.

"I don't know how you did it but I know that you did." Tears poured down her face. "Somehow you forced them to kill themselves, I know my sisters I know they didn't do this because they wanted to. How did you do it? Where you bit by some radioactive spider or something? Tell me!" She yelled, her vision was blurry but she turned the safety off and tried to line up the shot. She heard banging on the other side of the door and Dean was yelling but she had locked the door once she stepped inside. She was going to get answers. "I talked to you, I comforted you, and all this time it was you, you killed them! Did you know she had kids! You were killing a mother, did you know that?"

"But don't you understand that was why they had to die? They were breaking their vows before God! Cassie was sleeping with every man she could get her hands on and then I walked in on her sinning with our professor, our married professor. She deserved to die!" The lamp on the table suddenly went flying towards Anna's head and she ducked just in time. She could feel the glass brush against her hair before it smashed to a million pieces against the wall.

"How did you do that?" Anna screeched.

"Don't you see? God chose me! He chose me to carry out his wrath. Your sisters were sinners. First it was Cassandra with everything that moved. Then your sister had to come and save the day and do you know what she told me? She said she was in love with someone other than her husband, she thought she could save her baby sister if she told me." While Joanna was speaking all of the pens in the room had started to float towards them, circling them. "Your sisters were bad people. There was no saving Abel for Abel had sinned far greater than any one man had done before him. Don't you see there is honor in Cain's actions?"

"What twisted version of the bible are you reading? You murderer!" Anna yelled. "Cain's actions weren't honorable, he killed his own brother, he was a coward and God punished him." She spat as she watched the pens start to circle her.

"Oh no, Anna, God rewarded him. He granted him eternity and punished any other that tried to kill him." Joanna took a step forward. "Don't you see the gift of life bestowed upon him?"

"So you're Cain in this story?" Anna didn't lower the gun as she spoke. "You killed my sisters because they sinned. You killed them so you could live forever?"

"I can live forever under God's protection. But you Anna, you have angered God. You have tried to kill someone under his protection and you will suffer sevenfold." Slowly as Joanna walked forward and the gun in Anna's hand started to turn upwards. "Please understand I didn't want to kill them, Cassie was my sister. I loved her just as you did. That was why I had to kill her, why I had to kill both of them."

"I loved her, not you! I could never kill her. You are selfish and you will burn. I will kill you!" She yelled trying not to fear the loaded gun now lodged just under her chin.

Just as Anna thought it was the end she heard the door swing open and Dean flew through the door and punched Joanna square in the jaw. Just as he did the pens dropped to the floor and Anna regained control of the gun in her hand.

She dropped the gun and ran over to Joanna. She grabbed her by the throat, throttling her as she bashed her head across the tile floor.

"You killed my sisters! You devil spawn bitch!" She yelled as the tile cracked with the unconscious girls head. "I thought it would be hard to kill you but I was wrong. It is going to be the easiest thing I have ever done." She pulled the girls head closer to her mouth as she whispered the last words. "You are going to die and no one is going to miss you."

Anna poured all of the rage she was feeling, all of the hurt and the guilt and the anger, into that one final action as she picked up the girls head again. But something stopped her. She looked at Joanna, bleeding, her jaw swollen and bruised. Her head bleeding profusely, she looked sad and alone and for a second Anna didn't care, she even enjoyed it, but then it came back to her that this was a person.

For some reason she thought their fight would be more two sided. She didn't want to murder her she wanted to kill her. Her pressure on the girl's neck never loosened even as she thought about it and slowly, somewhere in the back of her mind she realized it, Joanna's pulse became erratic before it puttered out completely. As soon as she realized what she had done she flung herself off Joanna and scooted into the corner. Pulling her legs up to her chest she rocked back and forth slightly.

Her hands were sore and covered in blood. There was blood all over her face she looked like something out of a horror film. Her hands were shaking violently as Sam walked over towards her.

"Anna, Anna it's okay, you are okay." He approached slowly as she ran a bloody hand through her hair.

She wanted to scream at him that none of this was okay, nothing about any of this since the day they got here had been okay. Her sisters were killed by some freak with super powers all because they were sleeping with people they shouldn't have. Anna had just killed someone and as much as Joanna deserved it, it still wasn't okay. Nothing was okay about that. Instead she just sat there quietly waiting to wake up, praying that it was a dream.


	18. Chapter 18

She didn't wake up; there was nothing to wake up from. Instead Sam pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the bathroom to start wiping off the blood so that she could walk into the hall without calling attention to herself.

"Sam." She whispered without saying anything else. "Sam." She started again. "Stop, I can do it by myself. Stop treating me like I'm four. Is there anything I need to do to help with the -." She stopped for a minute before she could say the word. "The body?"

"Dean is grabbing some garbage bags, we can take care of this is you want." Sam whispered as he watched her scrub her at her hands with slightly too much vigour.

"I said stop Sam. I can do this, I can clean myself up and I can stuff that thing into a garbage bag, and I can do it by myself without you coddling me!" She yelled, slamming down the rag she was using to clean her face.

"It was a girl, just a girl. She wasn't a monster, she was a girl."

"She was a murderer! A murderer that murdered my sisters and some guy because they dared to sleep together, she wasn't just a girl! She was about to kill me! She might not have some scary name but she killed three people because she felt like it. She was a monster. I didn't mean to kill her but I am not sorry for a second that I did."

"You beat her head into the floor six times while you choked her." Sam looked like he wanted to yell but he kept his voice level. "If you didn't mean to kill her, what did you mean to do?"

"In the end, in the end I looked at her and I saw a girl, and I thought I should stop but my hands wouldn't let go. Do you know why I couldn't let go? Because she deserved it, she killed my family and she deserved it." Dean was back with the industrial sized black garbage bags and Anna walked over to give him a hand. "Do you want to know how I feel right now?" She asked Dean softly.

"I assume you are feeling pretty good." Dean grunted as they lifted Joanna's torso and stuffed her into the bag with a strangely satisfactory plop.

"I feel better than good, I feel weightless." She grinned because she wasn't sure how else to feel.

"Wanna feel good together?" Dean asked as he moved forward.

"Dean, you're standing on some girls brain juices that I just smeared all over the floor and you are asking me to get naked and lay on top of you?" Anna tired to sound annoyed but she didn't, she sounded eager and she wanted to slap the sound out of her.

"Or I could lay on top of you, whatever works best for you." Dean smirked like he thought he was so cool.

"Yeah." She smiled back at him. "Yeah, sounds like fun." She grabbed for a towel and started mopping up the mess.

"Don't you ever get tired of just fun?" Sam asked as Dean hauled the body out to the car and the two of them cleaned up.

"Sam, if you are getting tired of fun you aren't doing it right." Anna laughed as she took a swipe at the blood. "Dean and I we do fun right."

"So it's just fun with you two?"

"Yeah, what else would it be?" Anna looked at him. "It's like I said I'm not interested in a relationship, not with him, not with anyone. Actually that Razor guy I brought home, he was great, if he wasn't in a gang I would seriously date him." She really laughed that time. "I'm shit at relationships, I always have been actually. I broke up with my first boyfriend, Jimmy, four minutes after we did it under the bleachers because he wanted to talk about our feelings."

"Why did you wait four minutes?" Sam cut a glance at her. "Why not just cut and run?"

"That's how long it took me to put my pants back on and put on a fresh coat of lip smackers." Anna smirked at the memory. "I don't even remember him being that bad, I mean under the circumstances I actually think he wasn't bad at all, but feelings." She shook her head. "I'm bad with the feelings."

"So is Dean." Sam grunted.

"I know. Look, he shut me up because I pointed out that he cares more than he should. It's not really a secret that he's bad with feelings and I'm comfortable with that."

"What are you comfortable with?" Dean asked as he stepped back into the room and shut the door.

"I am comfortable with a lot of things Dean, but you have to buy me a drink to really find out." She winked.

"You won't tell me but you are going to tell Sam?" Dean wrinkled his features as he looked at her.

"Sam bought me a drink."

"I did?" Sam looked confused.

"A whisky sour and a beer, remember? Plus you got me laid so I figured I owed you one."

"Owed me one?" Sam repeated.

"Yeah I answered your questions. Questions that have nothing to do with you and I answered them, it's not my fault that you decided to waste what I gave you on some dumb questions. Here, hand me that trash bag." She dropped the blood soaked towel into the bag and stood up. "Dean would have gone for sex you went for questions, if that doesn't say something about a guy." She kicked her head to the side as she stood up. "So what do we do with the body? I mean do we bury it or something?"

"We burn it, salt the body and burn it." Dean didn't look at her as he said it and she couldn't get a read on what he was thinking.

"Why? What is the benefit to burning it?" She needed to know if she planed on doing this herself.

"First of all, do you realise how stupid it was to go off on your own?" Dean started yelling at her when he saw that the mess was cleaned up. "She had that gun pressed to your head, what would you have done if you were alone? She would have killed you. You had no idea what she was, what could have killed her! What if a gun couldn't do it? What would you have done?"

"What does it matter? She's dead and I killed her just like I said I would." Anna glared at him, trying to look confident. She hadn't even thought about the possibility of a gun not working. Guns always worked, they were the one thing she could depend on. If she took care of the gun the gun would take care of her, always.

"What – What does it matter? You could have gotten yourself killed!" Dean roared as he stepped closer to her. "Do you have some sort of death wish?"

"No, I every reason to live, except that I am alone, my family is dead and I'm here and I have killed yet another person. I know I don't know you very well, I don't know what you do very well, and I certainly don't do it very well but I do know one thing. I know that the dangers you face equate to a death sentence, that one day you will see your brother dead and then you will know. Why do you salt and burn the body?" She repeated the question as Dean glared at her.

"It prevents the spirit from coming back." Sam cut in before Anna and Dean started throwing things at each other.

"Spirits, like a ghost?" Anna looked at him and her gaze softened.

"Yeah, exactly like a ghost." Sam nodded. "If someone died a particularly gruesome or violent death they are more likely to come back as vengeful spirits."

"I guess bashing someone's head in six times and strangling them to death would be considered violent." Anna looked at the small crack in the floor where Joanna's skull had made contact with the tile.

"Yeah, something like that." Sam must have seen her looking at the spot before he moved in front of her line of sight. "Do you need me to do this? If you can't deal with this just say so."

"No Sam, if I do that, if I let you take care of me I'll never learn, I'll never get better. I did the hard part, now I have to take responsibility." Anna shook her head.

"If you're old enough to kill you are old enough to take care of the body. No one gets an out." Dean glared at Sam and Sam met his gaze with an annoyed look.

"Well seeing as I'm older than you, I think I'm more than ready." Anna heaved the bag over her shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

The smell of burning flesh was indescribable. At first it smelt like pork chops and then she had to remind herself that this was someone she had killed and she could not be getting hungry off the smell of her burnt flesh. Over time the stench became more foul and less like food. She blocked her nose with the sleeve of her sweater and tried to remember the smell of pork chops.

"I'd be sick but I haven't eaten anything in a couple days so I don't have anything to throw up." Anna muttered as she watched Sam warm his hands over the fire.

"We should get some grub after this." Dean threw in some of the rags into the fire and watched them crackle.

"Anything but pork chops." Anna muttered, she looked at the body and then over to the lights of her house.

"You're going to eat something?" Sam looked surprised.

"Sam I know I've been trashing my body, I know I have been drinking too much, I know I haven't been eating, I know I haven't been sleeping, I know it's a fast track to death, but things will be better now they have to be better now. I killed her and it can't mean nothing so things have to get better, and the only way they are going to get better is if I change what I'm doing." She shrugged.

"What about the guys?" Dean asked and Anna stared at him trying to figure out what he was wondering about.

"The men I bring home?" She saw him shrug slightly and assumed that meant yes. "That was a habit long before my sister's died, until I have a reason to change that habit I think I'm going to keep it. I don't do I, have a reason to change the habit that is?" She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. The ball was in his court.

"Nope, no, habits are good." Dean didn't look at her while he said it and his jaw seemed almost wired shut with the tension.

"Good to know." She whispered in return.

Now that her stomach wasn't clenched with the anger and rage to find her sisters' killer she felt hollow. She felt the hunger she had been suppressing for days, she felt the alcohol she had imbued in excess for equally as long, she felt the tiredness, and the grief, and the relief, because it was over. Anna checked her watch and looked up at the skyline. She could see the dark sky turn grey on the horizon; it was half past five in the morning. She shuffled backwards, barely lifting her feet off the ground as she went, she kept going until she hit one of the trees behind her and slid down until her ass hit the leafy floor.

Anna's hands still smelt of the petrol she had poured over the body, small pellets of rock salt that clung to her palms dug into her skin as she pressed them against the cold dirt ground. She closed her eyes feeling the heat being thrown off from the fire.

It took longer than she thought for the fire to completely encase the body. She wasn't sure what gave her the impression that burning a body would take a matter of minutes but she was wrong it took hours. Anna slumped a little and the fatigue overtook her in waves.

The next thing Anna realised she was being jostled slightly. Whatever she was lying on was softer than before; it was warmer too she thought with a muddied mind. She adjusted her still sleeping body closer to whatever it was, too hard to be a bed, too soft to be the forest floor she had fallen asleep on, and it was moving, rocking slightly.

"Stop moving or I'll drop you." A man's voice growled at her.

"Okay." She managed to whisper before falling back to sleep, unable to keep her brain alert enough to comprehend what was happening.

It was softer when she woke up again. Much softer, it was a bed, it had to be a bed, but she was trapped by something heavy, it was pinning her into the bed. Whatever was keeping her stuck to the bed moved up towards her face and she got a mouthful of hair. Anna's hands shot up to move whatever it was out of her mouth. She pulled her head away making spiting sounds. It was an arm, the thing pinning her to the bed was an arm. Turning her head to the side she saw a figure next to her snoring so lightly it would more accurately be described as moaning.

"Dean." She whined softly as she pushed at his shoulder. There was a grunt of recognition so she kept talking while she moved her feet up to press on his knees, hoping that the cold would jolt him out of sleep. "What time is it?" She asked blearily. Another grunt and some shifting was her only response. "Come on, wake up!" She demanded before turning her own head into her pillow and closing her eyes. Not really expecting to fall back asleep but fully appreciating the darkness.

"It's – Uh – one, no, one thirty." Dean grumbled. "Go back to sleep."

She heard him grumble about something but couldn't make out any of the words.

"S'not possible." She frowned, picking her head up to look at him. "It was half of five just before I fell asleep." Anna was not convinced that she had slept so long that she had wasted a whole day and it was the middle of the night again,

"No, one thirty in the afternoon." Dean said the words but it was like he didn't know what he was saying as he let his head fall back into the mountain of pillows he had amassed.

"Oh." Anna threw the covers off of her and sat up. She rubbed at her neck, looking down at the one flimsy pillow she had been using. "Why didn't you wake me up?" She asked looking over at Sam's empty bed.

"Do you see what I'm doing right now?" Dean yelled as he picked his head up to glare at her. "I'm sleeping, why the hell would I wake you up?"

"Fine, sorry." Her head hurt more than she wanted it too and fighting was only making it worse. "I'm going to take a shower." She muttered as she walked the three steps to the bathroom.

As she moved she pulled the shirt she was wearing off and undid her hair. She thought she was being sexy, maybe even laying it on a little thick. Anna was surprised to hear Dean roll back over onto is stomach and yell at her not to use all the hot water. She slammed the bathroom door shut, earning another unpleasant growl from the sleeping man

"Ass." She whispered to herself as she started the water and stepped under the warm torrent of water.

Just to spite him she showered until the water turned to ice. In an attempt to feel semi-human again she took the time to dry her hair and lotion her legs. Despite pampering herself more than she had in months she still felt hollow. Walking out in a towel she saw him still laying on the bed. Anna walked over to him and crawled over him, her legs splayed to each side of him.

"Dean, wake up." She whispered into his ear. "Come on I have a surprise for you." Her hand causally weaved its way through her hair.

"Oomph." He grunted as he felt her weight on him. "Why do you smell?" He asked, causing Anna to frown. She thought she smelt like her strawberry lotion but he made it sound like she was doused in eau de last week's trash.

"Because I showered." She reared her head back as he looked at her. "Come on, I'm naked." She pointed out.

"I'm tired. Aren't you cold?" He asked finally.

"Well I was kind of hoping you might help warm me up." Anna glared at him because now that he mentioned it, yes, she was freezing. The outside temperature had dropped significantly in the short time they had been there and she wouldn't be surprised if it snowed within the next few days.

"Not now, I'm sleeping and then I'm getting a burger." Dean laid out his plan for the day and he made clear that naked Anna wasn't a part of it.

"Fine." Anna heaved herself off of him and slowly dressed herself trying to ignore the annoyance she felt towards him. If she were honest with herself she would have felt the embarrassment but she was content to live in the dark for now.

Walking downstairs she saw Sam sitting on the couch and reading several newspapers, his laptop out and waiting for a search.

"Hey Sam, whatcha up to?" She asked with a smile before she sat down next to him.

"Just looking for the next case, you know gotta keep moving." Sam kept his gaze focused on the papers as he spoke. "Want some coffee? I think that's the last of it." He offered pointing to a chipped cerulean ceramic mug with his pen.

"Sure, hey do I smell bad to you?" She asked before stealing his drink.

Sam turned to look at her and she held out her hair for him to sniff.

"Uh, no, you kind of smell familiar. It's like something I've smelt before but I can't remember where. Why do you ask?"

"No reason, it's just something Dean said." Anna forced a smile before she stole one of the papers from him and opened it. "So what am I looking for?"

"Anything that stands out to you, mysterious deaths, complaints of livestock mutilations, disappearances, anything that seems like the police are trying to shove it under the rug." Sam told her before he handed her a pen of her own. "Circle it and we can look over it."

"Got it." Anna nodded as she looked through the Trenton Times. "Where did you get a New Jersey newspaper?"

"Washington." Sam muttered and Anna stared at him.

"You drove to Washington DC to get a newspaper?" She clarified. "That's like a three hour drive." Anna informed him rather needlessly.

"I couldn't sleep." He shrugged.

"When you can't sleep, you go to Nifty Fifties diner and get a malted, not drive to DC." She shook her head. "Something got you up at night?"

"It was the middle of the day, you two were passed out cold and I needed something to do." Sam shrugged again like it was no big deal.

"Yeah, I get that part, but from personal experience I can tell you not sleeping is because there is something you are afraid you are going to see if you close your eyes for too long."

"I had another dream." Sam whispered.

"Like of someone dying in freaky ways?" Anna's tone lost its humour as she looked at him. Now that she was paying attention he looked sickly. Sam nodded slowly. "When? It's not someone we know is it? It's not my dad or something, because I know we have a fucked up relationship but I don't want him to die." Anna rambled as she thought about her nightmares.

"No, it's just a stranger, just this guy." Sam frowned; clearly he was playing the dream over in his head trying to grasp at the finer points of everything. "It was sort of like your sister, in that it looked like a suicide but it was different."

"Well, don't hold out on me. How was it different?" Anna asked mentally preparing herself for the worst. She saw Sam look at her obviously questioning if she really wanted to know. Anna nodded, now that he had told her some of what he saw she needed to know the rest.

"Your sister, I saw her being forced to hurt herself. She was begging to stop but it was her hand doing it." He paused to gauge Anna's reaction before continuing. "This guy, he gets trapped his car in a closed garage and the key in the ignition turn's itself." He stared at her for a second before turning back to the paper in his hand.

"So people are dying in weird ways and the only thing that connects them is you? You're telling me we aren't going to check this out?"

"I don't want to." Sam muttered.

"Well you don't have a choice! You saw this man die you need to at least try and help him. Isn't that kind of like the family motto around here?" She scolded.

"Dean's already freaking out about my nightmares, what if these one's come true too? What does that make me?"

"Blessed, it makes you blessed." Anna frowned and her forehead crinkled as she thought about it. "You get a heads up with Death. Do you know how many people would kill for that?"

"It's not a head's up, it's a snuff film playing on repeat every time I close my eyes. It's not a blessing, it's a curse."

"Call it whatever you want but knowing what you know and seeing what you have seen makes you responsible." Anna argued, still not entirely convinced that his dreams weren't some sort of gift. "If this man dies because you did nothing, because you purposefully ran in the opposite direction, his death will be on your head. You have to try, so where are we going?"

"The licence plate was from Michigan." Sam finally answered her after a lengthy pause.

"Great, I'll pack a bag." Anna stood up and walked away from him.


End file.
